Quitting the Hurt
by MyMadness
Summary: It isn't Foyle's attachment to the past that is the problem. It's the hurt. The solution? Sam hopes it's her. Chapter 18.  That last bit.  Thank you!  "I don't suppose you could blush on cue?" Christopher suggested.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: My first Foyle's War. I have only watched through Invasion. But this happens sometime soon after Bad Blood. And it is just as AU as I need to be._

_Quitting the Hurt. It isn't so much Christopher Foyle's attachment to the past that is a problem. It's the hurt._

* * *

><p>It had been strangely quiet for days at the station. The cases were straightforward and lacking in intrigue. For DCS Foyle, the car rides he shared with his driver were not only less frequent this past week, they were somehow different.<p>

It wasn't something he could put his finger on, not even with his knowledge of human behavior. Not even with his understanding of the woman involved.

Foyle exited his office and checked his watch. With a quirk to his expression, he wondered where his tea might be. He had thought that with a lack of excitement he was more likely to see tea on time, not less.

His sergeant did not even need to be asked the relevant question. "She's outside... talking to the cats," Paul Milner said with a bit of amusement.

_Again_, Foyle thought.

Sam bounced up off the step when she saw him come out. "Do you need me, Sir?" she asked a mite sheepishly.

"No." And they were stuck with their silence then. She didn't understand why he was out there with her. There wasn't a thing she could think to say to him other than to offer to make him his tea, but he claimed he was fine without. She was about to go in to make the tea regardless when his quiet words escaped him.

"In general, Sam, it's a bad sign when a woman prefers talking to cats."

"Oh."

"As if she's given up..."

"On men," she supplied. "Yeah, I know that's what people say."

"Have you?"

"Only mostly."

What Foyle got from her quick reply was that she wasn't in the mood to be teased... and that surprised him. Worried him. Bothered him. Because he loved to tease her.

He did have to worry about himself as well, because he had felt compelled to even bring up men. Oh yes, he had brought things up on the sly. But still HE knew why he had done it. Even though it would break his heart to find out she was seeing someone, he couldn't stand not knowing if some man was behind her recent mood.

"Wish I had something more to feed them," Sam said, as she dusted off her hands and motioned toward the half dozen felines.

"They seem to like you well enough as is," he tried to comfort. And why he felt the need to comfort her over a group of stray cats, he didn't know. And why he knew he would bring her fish heads from the next weekend of fishing was completely beyond him.

/ / / /

When that day came on the following Monday morning, they found themselves outside and alone again. He kept his distance from her, quite consciously. He stood close enough to whisper and not be overheard. It was a distance that allowed him to pretend they were different together. Still far enough to avoid a dreaded sense of impropriety.

_God knows why she's smiling at you, Foyle. Bringing a lady fish heads? Oh, there's no resisting you. And why are you trying so hard, when you so desperately need her to resist you. And you her? _

Against all odds, Sam happily thanked him for what he'd brought. And he quietly told her there was no need. His thoughts became weirder then - as he fancied they were the parents of these little furry creatures and together they were working out how best to provide for them. "They are awfully cute," Sam was saying. And he found himself faintly smiling and, more impossibly, agreeing.

"I could come with you next time," she said as she scratched at a tabby.

As lost in his bizarre thoughts as he was, he did not understand at first. But she was offering to come fishing with him to help feed (their) this brood.

"That would be fine, Sam. But you needn't."

She looked at him quickly. "I haven't been fishing in an awfully long time."

"Perhaps you'd feel less home sick if you did?"

And she nodded, but looked away, because a deception was being performed. Because she was letting him think that her mood was over missing home. But it was over him.

She watched him walk for the door. He paused there, his hands in his pockets, his smile that secret one that had started all of these longings that she felt. He jerked his head toward the entrance, and Sam laughed despite her mood. She loved the way they got along. The way they spoke and then, didn't speak.

When she'd started here, it didn't take her long to figure out that the man was smart and fair. Honest in a rare and noble way. A week in Hastings and she knew DCS Foyle was the model policeman, doing what seemed impossible over and over again. But she admitted it had taken a full month to see the sly humor in his expression, to feel the warmth of his concern.

All of that taken together would have made him a perfectly lovely boss. But once Sam had seen those things in him, it was too late. She was well on her way to falling in love.

/ / / /

"Won't you come _**all**_ the way in, Sam?" he asked, as he put his coat on the hook.

But she stood her ground in his hallway. She was regretting tonight's plan. Doubting the show of courage that had got her here to their showdown.

...

It was mid December now. Two uneasy months had passed since their afternoons feeding cats. The day fishing had never come to be. He had thought better of it, she believed. She had a hard time being alone with him of late, and she thought he had probably picked up on that.

The members of the force had been invited to a light hearted Christmas fete at the theater. Civilian dress was in order for her, Christopher Foyle had told her. And she had sworn that his eyes had sparkled and maybe even shyly drifted the length of her as he had said it.

She'd spent 2 hours at her billet trying to calm herself. Trying to pick out the right outfit. Trying to tell herself that tonight, with the air crisp and with her looking like a woman and not a British Army haversack, that Foyle would be able to read her mind.

She had settled on a fitted, light green dress. One that she thought had gained a certain amount of his unspoken favor a year ago.

They had sat side by side all evening. Looking mostly straight ahead. There had been just the rare unmet sideways glances – from him as well as her. But no matter where she'd looked, her thoughts were decidedly addressed to him. In that room, they'd been seated closer than even their time spent driving the country side. A fact she'd noted over and over as the evening progressed. A fact she'd anxiously enjoyed.

Their hands and shoulders had collided when they both bent to retrieve her dropped handbag at the evening's end. He had merely smiled until he saw the blush that warmed her.

"Anything wrong, Sam?"

"No... sir." And she had smiled as best she could.

"Good," he had replied. But the look he returned was decidedly concerned. And his eyes so tender it hurt her to look at him.

She'd gotten him home with none of her usual talkativeness. With none of her usual confidence, she then asked if she might have a quick word with him. Inside the house.

He had said 'yes' with a raise of his eye brows and a nod of his head. And a scared looking Sam had followed him through the door in silence, her head bent in thought.

….

And now she was refusing to budge further than his front hall, making the man repeatedly flex his hands in a rare show of nerves.

"I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but I am out of options," she began.

"You are worrying me, Sam."

"That's what everyone says lately," she admitted with what felt like the last of her humor.

"And why? Hmm?" he probed more gently.

"Everyone knows I'm distracted. Off. Just not right."

"You've had a rough patch of it, Sam."

"That's not it," she insisted. "Although maybe feeling like either you or I are about to get ourselves killed makes it impossible to keep things tamped down any longer."

"Just tell me what's bothering you."

"I don't think of you only as my boss," she hedged.

"Explain quickly, Sam. Please? Before I leap to the wrong conclusion?"

There was a deep breath then on her part. One held, on his.

"I'm in love with you," she said quite levelly. "It is not a crush. Two years ago, maybe, I could have told myself that was all it was... but..."

"Apparently, the 'wrong' conclusion was the one you were leading to," he said almost to himself, a hand to his brow.

"I didn't expect this to go well," she complained to the ceiling.

"I don't mean that you are wrong for … well, I mean that I had not supposed that THAT was what you were going to say, because I had thought I would have been _**wrong**_ for supposing it," he said sounding a bit rattled.

"Well, you are the only one at the station who does not think I either have the 'flu or a crush on you."

"I was considering that you were under the weather or that perhaps you were just fed up with Hastings. You've been so sad seeming at times."

"Being in love with you, long enough, apparently causes a fairly helpless feeling. I finally got to the point where I could see that I just needed to tell you. And face the consequences."

"You say it's been a long time, Sam," he told her with a conciliatory tone. "But just last year..."

"I was never in love with Andrew. It wasn't like that, not at all. He and I were just sort of together to be together. It was a bad time for him those last months here and..."

"And I pushed you together? And your sense of duty extended to… evenings spent with my son?" Foyle said being uncharacteristically insensitive.

She said nothing at first. But she fixed him with a glare he ducked. "We were friends," Sam stressed. "He just needed..."

"I saw you kiss him," Foyle told her, his eyes still averted. "You were crying at the airfield when he left."

She shook her head at him, wondering why, if he didn't want anything to do with her romantically, was he acting jealous.

"I was so relieved that he was safe... that he was being posted to Debden rather than anywhere else. Relieved for him _and for you_. That's why I was crying. I was just so thankful that he had made it through all those horrible weeks."

Foyle searched her eyes then as if considering her and what she had to say.

"It was always only goodbye that roused him," Sam continued to explain. Her arms came across her chest then, and she hugged herself as if cold or needing a comfort that wasn't coming. "That was the only thing that seemed to make him want to kiss me. We didn't see each other that often. And when we did, mostly I was there to put up with his moods and to keep him company. And I didn't mind. Really.

"I know you thought it meant something when he was in my lodgings... when he was AWOL. But if you could have seen him..." she said with a pain that was still fresh. "He came apart right there in my sitting room. He begged me to not send him back. It wasn't that he... well, wanted _me_. He wanted a place to stay. He just couldn't fly. Not right then. We _never_..." she said almost frantically. "I've never ..." she admitted quietly now.

He cringed. His mouth twisted harder. He felt horrid that he had pushed at her. Forced all of these admissions, especially this last and most personal one. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I meant other than you seemed to have been close to him..."

"When he left, he didn't say 'I love you' or 'I'll miss you.' He told me 'Good luck,'" Sam explained with a wry smile. "He said to take care of _**you**_. It was as if he knew that's the thing I wanted most. To watch out for you."

Foyle swallowed hard and asked her gently, "And what did you tell him? About you and me?"

"I told him, you and I...we would take care of each other." She looked away. "I wanted you to care about me the way I care about you. And I think he knows now, with all I've said to him since, that... I'm in love with you."

She let out a quick frustrated noise and turned to put her hand on the door knob at last.

"Sam," he simply said, and she froze there, her back to him.

"You won't want me to come back..."

"From your Christmas leave." He paused and thought it through. "That's why you..."

"That's why I waited to talk to you tonight. That's why I'm going home for Christmas," she confirmed. "I've been wanting to say something to you for weeks. But I had to wait until it wouldn't look too horrible for you or me if it went badly. This way I can just tell people I decided not to come back after Christmas. That was my plan." She turned around to face him again finally. "But... I can't imagine it. Even if you don't have any feelings for me. I'd still want to be here. I can't explain... other than to say I love you. And I don't want there to be a day I don't see you." She said the words with so much feeling that Foyle's stomach dropped out. "I'm an idiot, I guess. I thought, maybe, you might appreciate knowing someone loves you... and sometimes, I thought you thought about me... like that."

"I don't want you to leave Hastings, Sam," he faltered. "And it is amazing to me that you could be... But that doesn't mean I know what I am meant to do. I don't know if I should escort you back to your parents and lock you in your room..."

"Lock me in...?"

"Because I fear I could be a petty, selfish man when it comes to you, Sam. And if I can't have you, I don't want anyone else to either. If I was a braver man, and fifteen years younger, I should take you home and tell your father... I want the chance to court you. Correctly." He stopped. Sighed. Abused the inside of his cheek with his teeth. "It's all got so muddled. So backwards... And the important thing - for both of us to remember - is that I am quite simply the wrong man for you."

"You _**have**_ thought about me..."

"I have thought about you..." he said with a quiet nod. "Not at all like my driver. Not at all like a daughter, either, should you worry. And for an embarrassing amount of time, Sam. Since before you stepped out with Andrew."

It was hard for her to enjoy his confession, as it seemed to make him cringe. The man kept his distance from her, his hands shoved into his pockets, his head down. He might feel something for her, but it seemed to bother him that he did.

"So, we are both interested, but it is a bad idea?" she summed up unhappily.

"I don't have any good ideas lately," the man whispered. He groaned and began again, sounding only like a DCS. "You are my driver. I am responsible for you. It would make things beyond inappropriate... And I cannot even discuss the age difference which you seem to want to ignore. At this point, there may be embarrassment and some pain over what we have both said. But at least we have yet to open ourselves up to ridicule or charges of impropriety," he said with grimace-worthy formality.

"Could you, just once, be slightly more forthcoming? Emotionally?"

"I'm not sure." And there was just the hint of a familiar smile.

"What do we do about this, that is what I am asking. Are you just saying 'oh, well done us' for acknowledging what we are thinking, but that any sort of … involvement is a bad idea? Something out of the question?"

"A bad idea is pretty obviously a bad..."

She groaned and pulled on the door.

His hand was above hers closing the door again before she could escape.

"Christopher," she said, quietly drawing out the syllables. He noted with perverse amusement that the first time he was to hear his Christian name come from her, it _**would**_ have to sound like a chastisement. "Let me go. I can't do this. I can't be here with you... when you are like this." She did turn to face him then, but she sagged against the door.

"When I am like what?" He whispered his gentle interrogation.

"You are talking in riddles and I... I'm stuck wanting to kiss you, and not kissing you." She looked at her shoes and continued her confession. "It isn't just wanting, like it's a simple idea in my head. It is... I _feel_ it. Making me crazy and distracted and nearly sick. And I can't..."

It was surreal, hearing her describe a feeling he knew too well. And he knew what he needed to do.

_Just once, just one kiss._

Before his conscience could rein him in, he leaned to her and gently laid his lips against hers.

It was sweet and cautious and nervous. And for a brief horrible moment all he could think was that she was the third woman he had kissed since his wife had died. But then as dear, irrepressible, innocent Sam reached to touch his cheek to ask for another kiss, all he could think was that this was the first woman he had not regretted since that dark day.

Their kisses were simple. But still, the moment was electric, thudding with confusion, and hinting at years of want. He eased away, and she thought she glimpsed acceptance on his face. She laughed in relief.

But when she looked at him closer now, she realized it had all gone wrong. He'd taken a step back and dropped his head.

"You can't even look at me," she said sounding hurt.

_I can't look at you, you're right. But I love you, and I can't ever let you know._

He stumbled for something suitably passionless to say. "I have betrayed your trust. Your father's trust in me.. Abused my position..."

Could anyone else make her feel so wonderful and then so wretched in a moment's time, she asked herself. "Oh, stop!" she begged. "It was only a kiss, and I had to nearly badger you in to it!"

There was something about the way she'd said those words. Sam's brand of dramatic exasperation in it. There was a warmth in having the woman he cherished chiding him, teasing him. And there was something blackly humorous in a situation that had gone so completely wrong. The farce was made complete by the mental image he had of himself. There, against the wall, cowed by this slip of a woman and the threat of her unnerving kisses.

He started to smile – a tight smile something like a grimace - if only because it had all gone absurd.

"Now what?" he wanted to know. He didn't seem to even be asking her, so much as the gods or fate, she noted with annoyance.

She'd lost her patience with him, it seemed. She had run out of words, he guessed. Because she took a quick poke at him then. Slim fingers shoved him at the shoulder. "Oh, give over!"

A single eyebrow worked backwards towards his hair line as he regarded her. And that should have been all that was needed as a reprimand.

Her moment's guilt faded away though when she saw he wasn't at all angry. And with his typical delay, his smiled inched up in answer to hers, despite a world of misgivings.

After a pause. A sigh. A hand scrubbed across his face, he finally spoke.

"I'm sorry," he told her with an aching softness.

And she worried he was sorry for kissing her, and he likely was, but he damned well better not say it.

"I'm sorry if I made you feel somehow undesirable," he finished. "Because you most assuredly are not."

She blushed and grinned, feeling only the compliment. That was his Sam. Beautiful and not knowing it. Innocent and untamed. Quite forgetting himself, his face soon mirrored hers. His smile was rare, full. Pleased.

"That. There," she said quietly with a nod to him.

"What?"

"The full Foyle charm. That smile. If you ever think I don't love you... really. Give me that smile. And I'll be quite moved to show you."

"Please, Sam."

"All right..." she willfully misconstrued. And she moved to kiss him, catching him unprepared. Her arms slid around him, and she pressed her hands to his back. Her hopes were so raw and apparent.

"Sam..." he said gently as he pulled away. His hands removed her arms from him. "We can't..."

A horrified Sam blushed and stammered her apologies. She knew she was being dismissed. He didn't mean for it to all seem so harsh, but he couldn't stand to have her pressed up against him.

Foyle closed his eyes and went starkly quiet. With a woozy step, Sam moved for the door. But then she stopped to look back. Embarrassment was burning at her, but she found she worried more for him.

"You're going to hurt yourself," she told him quietly. And slowly, as if afraid to startle him, she raised a single finger to touch where he now bit too hard at his lip.

_All of it already hurts more than you know, Sam._

/


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I've borrowed here from parts of an Anglican service from 1928. That appears in bold italics. Phrases appear in the order they would from the service... if only selectively heard._

_This is chapter 2 of what will likely be 5 or 6 chapters. I have everything sketched out. It needs fluffing. And divvying up. _

_Thank you for reading this and especially for the beautiful reviews. _

* * *

><p><em>Foyle closed his eyes and went starkly quiet. With a woozy step, Sam moved for the door. But then she stopped to look back. Embarrassment was burning at her, but she found she worried more for him.<em>

"_You're going to hurt yourself," she told him quietly. And slowly, as if afraid to startle him, she raised a single finger to touch where he now bit too hard at his lip._

_All of it already hurts more than you know, Sam._

/ / / / / / / / / /

He opened the door to her the next morning, determined to manage his emotions. He would soldier on, brave faced. Sam would follow his lead, he knew, before he even met her eye.

_Oh, good girl_, he thought, as he returned her business-like nod.

But he also wasn't surprised when she needed to offer up a blanket apology for what had happened the night before.

"I'm very sorry, sir," she told him, head down, as they walked for the car.

He slid in to the passenger seat and told her quite resolutely. "Please. Don't apologize. You haven't done anything wrong."

"But it is all spoilt, just the same."

The soldiering on he would always manage. But the brave face was leaving him, he knew, at the truth of what she'd said.

"Let's not try to figure out anything," he suggested gently. "Nothing more than getting through the 10 days 'til your leave starts. We can do that? Can't we?"

"Of course, sir."

...

It was 10 days of sighs, silence, and averted looks. There were questions from Milner and Brooke and Superintendent Reid. And Foyle was sure he could not stand one more person asking, quite innocently, if something was bothering him or if he thought perhaps, Miss Stewart was not herself.

There would come three times - each to be crisply catalogued and relived in Sam's memory - when Foyle held and squeeze her hands. But they were moments that could only feel like so much consolation to her.

He would kiss her again, as well. Just once. When their attempt to talk about her leaving fell to tears in his front hall. But through it all, he was never truly forthcoming about how he felt about her.

Sam forgave him because she loved him and because he seemed as unsettled as she was. He was quite clearly a man at war with himself. And Sam knew there was nothing she could do.

So, she bought the ticket out to Lyminster. And she made it one-way.

...

He walked out to the train station to see her off on that dark morning. There was more silence than words between them, but that surprised neither of them.

"Do you know when you are coming back?" he asked.

"I haven't booked anything."

He was sure the hesitation to his stride betrayed him then. _She needs to know why she would come back, Foyle. She needs to know what she would come back to. Or she needs to be told to start on a good life for herself._

"I see," he whispered. "Well, I hope you have a fine time at home, Sam. I hope you enjoy yourself. You deserve that." There weren't worse words to tell a woman who needed to hear she would be missed. Who needed to know she was loved or that someone needed her to come back. She began to cry then, not over missing him so much as over the feeling of losing him. She wiped at her eyes quickly, and shook her head at his whispered concern.

The train was there and would depart in minutes. She needed to be on board, they both knew.

He pulled off his hat, intent on saying goodbye a little more properly. Intent on reminding himself, against his better judgement, what her skin felt like beneath his lips.

He leaned in and kissed her gently on the cheek. He heard her sniff then. Not with sadness, but with humor.

"Sam?"

She gave him a dismally amused smile and hefted her bag. "Foyle men," she told him. "And their meager good bye kisses. What would I do without them?" She walked a few steps for the train's stairs before she turned to him. He could see her take a breath. See her composure tested. "Be well, Christopher. Be happy. Please. _**You**_ deserve that."

/ / / / / / /

The letter surprised him by reaching him so soon.

She must have written after she'd been back at the vicarage only a short while. He hunched over the single page on his settee, reading it slowly. Not wanting it to end.

_Dear Christopher,_

_I arrived home without any mishap. Things are much the same here as they always have been. It is me that has changed, I suppose. _

_It being the Christmas season, there is no shortage of things planned. Things like visits made with my father, or decorating the chapel with my mother and the women in town. There are the evening social events and the afternoon teas. It is all very lovely or meant to be, and I can't stand it._

_Mother knows. She doesn't just know that I am having trouble fitting in at home, she knows I am love sick over you. She has been quietly sympathetic. It almost makes it worse to have her understand and worry. My skinned knees and falls from my bicycle never brought me half this much attention._

_Time, she tells me, is what I need. I'll get over 'it,' she says. Stay busy. Find the good. Buoy those who are worse off, and you will feel yourself lifted as well._

_Failing that, come spring, I will get myself a cat. _

_Send news,_

_Sam_

_..._

_She'll come back, _he told himself, as he filed the letter in his desk.

/ / / /

_She'll come back_, he told himself the following afternoon.

He closed his eyes as he leaned back into the settee, and pressed his glass to his head.

It was Christmas Eve, and Andrew was home for a few days. Coming in from the kitchen, the younger man caught Christopher at his distraction.

"You haven't mentioned Sam. How is she?"

"Fine. She's off home for Christmas," Foyle replied, as he straightened up.

"That's good. And you, Dad. How are you. Really?"

"Fine. Don't I look fine?"

"You look done in."

"Oh, splendid," his father sniped back.

"I'd like it better if I knew there was someone here with you..."

"A nurse, perhaps?"

"Well, _**I'm**_ awfully fond of nurses," his son supplied.

"I meant, someone to care for me in my present infirmity."

"You are being deliberately obtuse," Andrew said with a rakish grin.

_Yes, Andrew, I am, _Foyle thought._ And you have an appalling attitude where women are concerned. Thank God, Sam never let you touch her. _

"There's chicken for our Christmas dinner. Did you see?" Christopher asked, communicating the end of his patience with Andrew's choice of topics.

"And are you cooking?"

"Or you can eat it raw," Foyle smiled thinly.

"You _**are**_ in a mood, Dad. You won't tell me what it is? Some case?"

"Tired, maybe," his father deflected.

Andrew sat down at last. His anxiety over his father gave him a look no parent wants to see. "Are we going to church tonight then?"

"Yes. Yes. Certainly," Foyle rallied. "Why wouldn't we?" They needed to go. To get out of the house. To march through the rituals for each other, if not for themselves.

…

It was warm in the pews. The crowd was pressed thick. The words spun passed Foyle, tinny and never quite near. It felt horribly unfamiliar. Uncomfortable. Was that because he hadn't been to a service in so long?

Except for funerals. Just funerals.

He'd missed the cue to kneel, he knew, and he slid to join Andrew a few moments late. Pray, they were being told. _**Pray...**_

_**... for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; **_

_I'm sorry, Rosalind. For all the things I can't make right now. _

… _**give us grace ... O Father...**_

He strained to keep with the vicar's words, but Foyle lost his place as Sam crept into his thoughts. He willed it all to stop: the thoughts of her, the vicar's voice. But the words kept coming. And Sam was in front of him now, her arms coming around him. All he could do was pinch his eyes tighter closed and ask that God make it stop hurting.

… _**Draw near with faith...**_

_What of us, the faithless, Lord?_

… _**and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort. **_

_Comfort. Sam. Are you praying now, too? And when you hear that word, do you think...? Because I think of you._

_**... and make your humble confession to Almighty God...**_

_Confessions? Do you really need telling, Lord, what a balls up I have made of this?_

_**... O Lord...**_ _just 3 more days to her leave is over. She hasn't called to say what train she'll be on. But there's time. Tell me there's time._

_**... Maker of all things...**_ _I don't know what to do once she comes back._

_**... Judge of all men**_ … _I don't know how to manage this, the wanting and the helplessness. But I don't want to manage without her._

_Why, God? When she needs a man who is young and whole. When she deserves a man capable of loving her without reservation. A content man, one capable of marrying her. Why did you let us feel this?_ ... _**Have mercy upon us**_ ...

_And bring her back..._

_I have to give her up_... _**It is meet and right so to do...**_ _Eventually, I'll need to. I know. But is it so wrong to ask that she just be here with me for a little longer? _

_**Have mercy on us... **_

_On **me**, Lord. Have mercy on me. Just let me keep Sam to see me through another winter. Grant me her comfort. Her peace. That joy._

_Amen. Amen. Amen._

They were agreed, he hoped.

…

Andrew left on Boxing day in the car he'd borrowed. And Foyle turned back for his desk. With a fierce stroke he marked off another day. Then he retrieved her letter to read it all again.

/

Sergeant Brooke handed him a piece of paper as he walked in to the office on Monday afternoon. "Ah, there you are, sir. Miss Stewart called."

"Is she back then?" Foyle carefully asked.

There was a noticeable hesitation. "She telephoned from Lyminster, sir. The number is there."

Foyle felt his composure slip. Felt his hands turn to ice. He kept his eyes down as if studying the numbers and headed for his office.

Once behind his desk he looked at his watch. Four o'clock on the day that her leave ends?

God help him. She wasn't coming back.

/ / /

_note: I've trusted a UK website that claims "balls up" was WWI serviceman's slang for a mess. I'm not a Brit, so should I mangle something horribly, just let me know._


	3. Chapter 3

**_A/N: If Sam's mother has a name in canon, please advise? _**

**_I hope you enjoy this! _**

* * *

><p><em>Foyle felt his composure slip. Felt his hands turn to ice. He kept his eyes down as if studying the numbers and headed for his office.<em>

_Once behind his desk he looked at his watch. Four o'clock on the day that her leave ends?_

_God help him. She wasn't coming back._

...

Foyle called the vicarage once he arrived home.

It was Mrs. Stewart who answered the telephone. And before Sam could come get her call, the older woman whispered, "I'll need to speak with you when she is done. I will call you a bit later then."

Christopher grabbed for the nearby chair at that disclosure. He was sure he would need to sit for what was coming in any discussion with the mother of the woman whose heart he was breaking.

"Hello, Sam," he said as cheerfully as he could manage when she finally greeted him.

"I'm sorry for the late notice, Mr. Foyle."

"Call me 'Christopher,' Sam? Please. I miss it," he admitted with head down.

"I didn't mean to leave this until right before my leave ends. Not very responsible of me, I know," she managed softly.

"You aren't coming back."

"I don't know," she faltered.

"You might come back?" Even he could hear the grasp at straws in the quickness to his reply.

There was a long, pained silence until she whispered, "Christopher."

Why did such a little thing like his name on her lips give him hope? It shouldn't. This was, and needed to be, a hopeless situation.

Part of him had not gotten that message.

"Right here, Sam. I'm right here," he whispered back. He sported a sad smile now that he could not help.

"I need another week. Through New Year's and into the middle of next week."

"I think we can manage that. After that the MTC is going to want to know what we are going to do with you," he told her.

"I know."

"I'm sorry I haven't written," he said, sadly. "I didn't know what to say."

"It's all right," she lied.

"I-I have thought of you. Constantly."

"Why?" she wanted to know with her brilliant honesty. "If you can't love me. Why would you think of me?"

"I can't explain."

"I wish you could." Her words were not accusing, just simple and open.

"We'll talk later then. After New Year's," he suggested.

"Yes." And even now, Sam was pulling herself into a ball in the chair where she sat. "I suppose."

/ / / / / / / /

The conversation with Sam's mother happened 45 minutes later, and it was not a dressing down, but an invitation to visit. One she would not have refused.

Christopher needed to make sure Hugh Reid was available to cover for him on the days he wanted off. So, after ringing the man, he stopped in for a drink and a chat. Foyle really hadn't thought he would pry. But as soon as Christopher mistakenly mentioned Lyminster, Hugh made the connection to Sam, and the whole conversation became decidedly uncomfortable.

And, well, thought provoking. Not that he was inclined to listen to Hugh's lunacy any more than Andrew's.

Two days later Foyle found himself in Lyminster. When he stepped from the train, he knew Mrs. Stewart immediately. She was very like Sam. Their hair was the same color, save for the start of gray. And the elder woman was just as effortlessly vibrant in company as her daughter.

Whether or not it was the foremost thought on Mrs. Stewart's mind, he didn't know. But the obvious thing to him was that the woman was at most 3 or 4 years older than he.

"You don't drive?" Emily Stewart asked as they settled into her car. Her smile was almost wicked.

"No."

"Men and their peculiarities. Ever the intrigue."

She shifted hard and Foyle grabbed for the handle by his hip. She had seen him at it, and she smiled and apologized.

They pulled out of the station in silence then, with the woman obviously considering him with quick glances.

_Yes, yes,_ he was thinking. _I'm not what you expected, perhaps? Shorter. Even older. Lacking in far too many ways to be causing Sam this much distress?_

"Samantha will be so surprised to see you!" Mrs. Stewart finally allowed.

Foyle's eyes bulged. "She doesn't know I am coming?"

"She knows we are having guests over for the New Year. She does not know one of them is you." If possible the woman said this with a great deal of satisfaction.

After a few more minutes of driving, Christopher looked over to her. "You are taking us the long way around."

"Yes. Around the back way. We'll leave the town for tomorrow."

"Is there something on your mind," he ventured slyly.

"Funny you should ask."

He chuckled despite his discomfort.

DCS Foyle was not a timid man. He'd been shot at and bombed. Dropped on his head a time or two in a younger man's scuffles. Hell, he'd survived the football pitch**_ and_** the last war. Surely, he should rise to Mrs. Stewart's challenge. Nip this in the bud.

He smoothed his tie the way another man might check his weapon. "You have invited me here so that I can be forth coming with Sam. And tell her that I love her?" Christopher said, trying to act suitably miffed. "So that I can propose? So that..."

"I don't know that you have any of that in you or I should have thought it might have happened by now. You have known each other quite a long time. There are no real barriers between you. You are her boss, but that relationship could be severed in favor of another one in a moments' time, I am sure."

"Well, not a moment's..." he said unnecessarily, feeling flat footed.

"I think I have invited you here so that you can tell her, in boorish terms, that you do _not_ love her. That you _never_ will. That there is someone else. Say whatever you need to say."

"You want me to lie to her?"

"Would it be a lie, Mr. Foyle?" she quizzed, sagely.

Feeling foolishly caught out, Christopher Foyle looked away.

"I hope that you haven't done anything to make it more difficult for her to move on," the woman said in a tone that begged not to be misunderstood.

Christopher felt his eyebrows retreat upwards. He was being asked if he had slept with her or at the very least if there was a physical relationship that was part of Sam's fierce attachment to him.

"I wouldn't..." he cleared his throat and abandoned that thought. "She knows I am attracted to her. But our relationship - while not strictly professional any longer - would not be considered inappropriate."

Emily Stewart had the temerity to laugh at his precise, tortured language and his self -inflicted discomfort.

"Thank you," she told him sincerely. "Now. I do not expect you to understand..." she continued. But she looked at the world-weary man again then. "Well, perhaps you might. I would not be with Iain if another man had not behaved very badly. That man, Herbert, did not have to lie to have been thought a poor choice by all but me. It was the last war that changed him. We were engaged, and I waited for him. He came home in 1915, a drunk and... quite violent. But I will tell you, I was young enough and so much in love that I would have forgiven him nearly anything. And that would have been a very dear mistake. So, I would not have the life I was meant to have if my sister had not interfered."

"I am afraid to ask what she did."

"Locked me in a shed with Iain whilst we were all meant to be working at the hospital. The matron was not amused."

"And have you been locking Sam in sheds then with suitable young men?" Foyle asked more easily than he felt.

"No. I _**am **_most decidedly interfering. But you are not the despicable man my fiancé was. And I am giving you a chance to... one way or the other, Mr. Foyle. But, for God's sake and Sam's, be decisive. She cannot keep on this way. And she will forgive you the lack of letters. She will forgive you the endless waiting and the lack of declaration."

Mrs. Stewart pulled over then and looked at him quite seriously. "Samantha will wait for you until you are as decisive as that man who hit me. Iain was there to support me, but then there was no escaping him," she said with a touch of humor. "Iain convinced me I had to forget about ...that man. And when you finally make things as clear as you can to our Sam, she will still want you, I am afraid. Iain and I will be here for her to explain that she needs to forget you. I have no doubt it will take a good locking in a shed. But that's only because she loves you so much."

Foyle took a steadying breath. "And I thought I was here for a New Year's Eve party," he managed with a shade of gallows humor.

"Yes. That too," she told him smartly. And she threw the car in gear.

/ / / / / / / /

Once inside the vicarage, Christopher put his bag at his feet and worked at removing his coat. He looked up then at the sound of movement on the stairs. Someone was coming down.

It surprised him then to realize how well he knew Sam's footfalls, even the mood in them. She came into view in part. There were her tantalizing legs, the edge of her dress. Foyle was frozen without quite realizing it.

Mrs. Stewart reached for his coat, but he did not move. He could see all of Sam now, but she had yet to notice him. Her head was down as she navigated the stairs. She looked pensive, distracted, but to Foyle, entirely beautiful.

The moment felt suspended as he waited for her to realize that he was the person his mother had retrieved from the station.

She looked up finally as she reached the last step. And she stopped sharply.

"Oh, Mother," the younger woman lamented, as she locked eyes with her boss. "What have you done?"

/


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: I have spent a bit of time on this. It is in that pesky phase (plot wise) where it would be really good if it all made sense and if the themes cooperated. Thanks for reading and for all the great support. _

* * *

><p><em>She looked up finally as she reached the last step. And she stopped sharply.<em>

"_Oh, Mother," the younger woman lamented, as she locked eyes with her boss. "What have you done?"_

/ / / / /

"I hope you aren't unhappy about your mother inviting me here," Foyle said later, as they walked out the back door to head across the long yard.

"Oh. That shows how much you know," she said, sounding like an old soul. Her hands were in the pockets of her practical dress, and Foyle walked close at her side in a quite similar posture. She gave him a nudge with her shoulder before she told him, "No matter what, I will always want to see you. That's just how it is for me. Does that make sense?"

"Yes. It does."

Sam stopped, and so he did, too. She looked back over her shoulder at the house, as if judging the distance, as if weighing the likelihood that what they did out here was observable.

"For just these few days, let it be different. Let me not be your driver. Don't be my boss. Could you forget what you can?"

"I'll try," he promised, with his head dropped.

He looked at her at last, really looked at her. Although he said nothing more. To Sam his face was soft and sweet. Worried, but somehow welcoming. "Let me?" she whispered then as she raised a hand to stroke his cheek. "So many days, I've just wanted to touch you. Days I've wanted to be able to... I told myself you needed something. But it was just me wanting to touch you, I think."

The movement that she saw coming from him then stopped her words. His hand came up to tease at a strand of her hair, and she held her breath a moment. His warm touch ghosted across her cheek. "You've made it all easier. Better. You weren't to know, though. I was going to keep it a secret," he mused sadly. "I've missed you so much this past week, Sam. So much. It makes me realize I've taken you for granted."

"Then don't take me for granted, Christopher. At least not for this weekend."

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

They were rarely alone, it seemed, as he helped Sam get things ready for lunch. Together they happily cut potatoes with their shirt sleeves rolled up. They collect herbs from the green house. But her parents were never far away, no matter what they were doing.

After lunch, Sam was eager to get them out from under her parents' roof. She suggested a drive for the afternoon.

"We shouldn't waste too much petrol," she said.

Christopher could sense her mood. "But?" he floated with a small grin.

"Just now, I can't get away from this house fast enough," she smiled back ruefully, as they both slid into the front seat.

"Your father is all right with us out and about all afternoon together?"

"We've been out and about day and night for two and a half years," she told him, as she headed out of the long drive. "But, no. I don't think this is sitting well with my father. It is a little bit more real to him just now. He doesn't know what to do. I wonder if this is a huge embarrassment to him that I seem to have thrown myself at you and caused all this trouble."

"You haven't thrown yourself at me. And I certainly have not let anyone know I minded anything." He smiled belatedly and not a little impishly.

She pulled over at what looked like a fairly popular place to park by the river. "Sometimes I think you are flirting with me," she told him, cautiously.

"I'm not always sure myself." And whether that was an admission or a joke, she couldn't tell.

They got out of the car to stand on the bank. She broke the silence at last, but trusted only small talk. "We'd fish downstream," she said, pointing off into the distance. "My cousins and I. But I preferred just swimming."

He motioned toward the grass, and they moved to sit. In strangely synchronized movements, they pulled at their coats in an effort to settle in.

Sam was surprised then when he reached for her hand a moment later. He said nothing. Did not even seem to look at her. Foyle just picked up her hand and cradled it in his two larger ones. She waited, afraid to even enjoy the contact.

"Dear, Sam," he said at last.

"I do love you. I do," she told him, quietly. "And even if nothing works, I 'm glad I told you. I'd like to think it feels good to know someone cares about you."

"It does. Not because it's 'someone.' Because it's you." Sam's declaration buoyed him, albeit guiltily. Whereas Elizabeth's two years earlier had left him cold. "But we are different, you and I. You are so... optimistic and..." The word he was trying hard not to add, they both knew, was 'young.' "You see the best in things. Some people are just not very good at believing everything is possible. So no matter how I've felt about you, it stayed something that I could never imagine making real." He paused and thought of Elizabeth again. "An old acquaintance told me I'd become hard over life."

She shook her head, seeming thoughtful. "You are quiet. But not the way you were when I came to Hastings. And you might be skeptical at times. You need to be, though, to be good at what you do. And I know you might need things proved to you. But you aren't hard hearted, and you aren't unfeeling. I don't believe you'd give up on something before you'd even tried."

Her words had made him a little uncomfortable. "Oh, I know I'm not unfeeling," he tried to joke. "I have been on quite the roller coaster with you. Worrying over you. Watching men chase after you."

"It hasn't been like that," she protested with an easy grin.

He smiled, thrilled to be teasing her again. Being in Lyminster, being alone with Sam, had let him …._unfold_ inside. He was relaxed here. There was something to this. Being in his weekend clothes. No cases at hand. No Hastings. Just Sam. Just now. No past, if he tried very hard - as Sam had asked - to forget.

"I would be selfishly happy when each suitor failed to stick," Foyle admitted with a devilish lilt. "I would watch how none of them knew how to behave with you. And then, the thoroughly unkind part of Christopher Foyle proceeded to gloat when you and I could so easily spend a day together. I was shamefully eager to see anyone else disappoint."

He caressed her palm with his thumb quite intently before he continued. "Then Joe had to tell me I was like a _**father**_ to you. So, I was depressed and wounded for a time, only to then be cautiously relieved when he told me he thought that because you talked so much about me... and how you admired me." Foyle smiled richly now.

"You really would think Joe could have figured out that _you_ were the only one I had feelings for," Sam shrugged.

"But that's it, isn't it? The assumption _everyone_ makes is that I am better off as a paternal figure."

She shook her head. "That was wishful thinking on Joe's part. Or he may have been looking for you to confirm that that was how _**you**_ felt. He wanted to know if you were competition."

"I gave nothing away. I left him hanging," Foyle said with mock wickness.

"You remember those Land Girls, Joan and Rose? They certainly did not think you were anything like a father figure to me." Sam blushed a bit.

"What do you mean?"

She looked down. "Joan figured we were... together. She didn't exactly put it that way. And she referred to you as my 'Lover Boy.'"

"Lover boy?" he winced.

"They figured that you... well, you know, _having_ you was just another ...perquisite of my job."

"They said that did they. 'Perquisite?'" His voice showed his amusement and his doubt.

"No. They didn't actually use that term. And I shan't repeat what they did say, so you can just leave off."

She took a deep breath before starting again. "There is a reason things didn't work out with anyone else... I just do better with you," she said. She was brave enough then to squeeze his hand. "With anyone else, getting along was the bother. But if I'd wanted it, there were kisses and dances, hands on me. And I _**didn't**_ want it." She got quieter then. "With you, being together was easy. But there were no kisses or dances or … and I've _**wanted**_ it."

To hear her say that _**he**_ was what she wanted and in that tone of voice? He felt an urgent tightening inside of him. She didn't look away. She held his gaze as if needing to let him know how serious she was. He felt it then, a primal sort of power and elation that made him want to give her everything she asked for. His jealousy told him he should make her forget any other man who had ever touched her.

After everything they had been through, why shouldn't he please them both this once? Nothing had come from his forbearance and contemplation. Nothing, but wanting her more.

He half turned to put a hand down between them, to lean to her before he lost this moment and regained his better senses.

She wanted his kisses. She wanted his hands on her. And he wished he could be the only man who ever made love to her. Those were the last thoughts in his head.

He kissed her passionately, quite taking her by surprise. There was a fumble, a gasp before she took hold of his lapel. And then there was no more sense of experimentation to what they did. He squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating on not overwhelming her. He had wanted her so long, he didn't dare let himself go... but when her mouth opened to his, he found himself drawn to deepening the kiss.

_O, that way madness lies, _his brain warned. And he didn't care. He held her tighter when he felt the way she responded, when he heard her moan.

She had wondered if it could be like this. There had been a young man or two, eager for her. Men who had kissed her hard and full. But she had hated it. God help her, she didn't hate this. His mouth on hers was beautifully demanding. Asking things of her. And she answered. She slid her hand inside his coat and around him. Without realizing what she was doing, she pulled him closer. Part of her was sure, so sure, she needed him pressed against her.

But to Sam, the best part was that in ending their kiss he did not show any regret. He touched his lips to hers again and again as they caught their breath. He stayed near then, his forehead against her cheek.

He was in turmoil over what he had done, but he would not hand her rejection again.

"This is good," she said at last. "Lovely. But I know the rules. My father has let us out here, so we are expected to be sighted by, I would say, no fewer than three parishioners. We need to make sure he can get a complete report come Sunday that we were in full public view and there was nothing untoward."

"So?"

"So, we'll drive into town. I'll show you the church, and then we'll sit on a bench by the old war monument, looking respectably amiable. Then we'll pack off for my parents.'"

There was one more kiss then, as if they were marking the end of one scene for another.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

The four of them had a pleasant supper and then sat together in the front room by the fire. Conversation was light, genial. It was enjoyable. But then he always enjoyed his time with Sam.

There was no push at topics involving the state of Sam and Foyle's relationship... if only because everyone involved instinctively understood that it would be terribly awkward to have a complete falling out at the beginning of an extended house stay.

Her father stood to go to his study with a sudden need to look up something. He was talking to himself as he left the room. Sam and Mrs. Stewart smiled at what must be, Foyle decided, a common occurrence that they viewed fondly.

Mrs. Stewart then made her excuses … owing to a headache. And the mood was left tense for Sam. Her mother, it appeared, was deliberately leaving them alone to talk before it was time to retire.

Looking uncomfortable, Sam moved to stand at the fire place. Foyle followed her and stood close beside her, his eyes on the flames.

He tested her mood with a hand to her arm. With a bitter sigh, Sam turned to him and wrapped one arm around him inside his open coat. Her other hand came up to touch his hair. She molded against him then in silent, slow motion.

"All right, Sam?" he queried, softly. He felt her lips on him then. Deliberate kisses crept across his neck and he felt sensation echo through him. "Sam..." His voice caught with want. With wanting her. And more, with wanting her happy. His hands cupping her face now, he eased back to look at her. Her eyes were uncharacteristically worried. It hurt him knowing he was the cause. And insensibly, he wanted to heal her, to soothe it all away with his kisses. His mouth on hers then, he worked to convey everything that was stuck inside of him.

_I love you. I need you. You mean the world to me. But, God help us, what do we do? _

"You'd be miserable with me," he lamented. "I can't keep you happy, and I don't want to be without you." She tried to object, and he stopped her with one more kiss. "What are we meant to do?"

"You have to decide," she said at a whisper. "It's not fair to you that it's come down to that. But that's where things have put us."

He nodded and rubbed at his brow.

"If you want me to come back," she began, "and pretend that none of this happened, I will. Because I want to be with you, no matter what."

"Your parents will not want you back in Hastings," he said slowly, sounding thoughtful.

"And two years ago, I would have done what they wanted. But not now. I want to be with you. If the only way I can do that is to go back to being your driver. And _only_ your driver, then I'll do that. But if you want to," she began to stumble on the words. She leaned forward to whisper at his shoulder. "If you want us to be together, but not tell anyone... just carry on in secret like this... I'll do that."

He put his hands to her arms and pushed back to look her in the face. "Sam! No. Please." He shook his head feeling quite undone. But he shouldn't be so surprised. He had done this. He had kissed her and held her with no words to explain how he felt or what he intended.

God help him, he knew how he felt. And still he couldn't decide what he should do. "It is above board or not at all," he told her. "I won't have you in some scandal. My God, Sam." He was still trying to recover from what she had offered. Even if to Sam 'carrying on in secret' was not an offer of illicit sex, it was still a hopeless plan. And she needed to understand that.

"I'm sorry. You must think I'm..." She was flush. Horrified.

"It's not your fault," he said as he pulled her a little closer. He could feel his chest seize with emotion_._ "Sam, you have to understand that I'm telling you 'no' _because_ I care about you. I treasure you. And that sort of arrangement never works. When something was found out about us, it would be a scandal. Everyone would imagine the most sordid things."

He kissed her as sweetly as he knew how and rocked her in his arms. "None of this is your fault, Sam. You know you aren't the problem."

"I don't know that you need be either." She tried to smile.

"Oh, Sam." There were moments like this when things did feel possible. When he forgot that he wasn't older, hopeless, and put broken on a shelf. But those brief times couldn't possibly weigh against the rest of what he knew.

"I wish I knew what you were thinking sometimes," she told him.

"Oh, me too," he said with a half smile.

"Promise me you'll give it a fair shot."

"I owe you that." His breath was halting now. "But how I feel fixes nothing. It doesn't guarantee any kind of happy ever after. But it means, truly means, that I want the best for you."

She nodded like she was numb. But mostly, she was embarrassed and wanting out. Her words were nervous. "Can we just make the most of this weekend? I'd like to keep the fairy tale a little longer. And then, come Sunday, it will just be like Cinderella after the ball. I'll put you on the train. Off to your castle. And I'll turn back into a pumpkin..." She looked up and tried to smile at him over the off-quote. She'd grown to enjoy feeding him such things.

"Not a pumpkin. That's not how the story ends," he teased. His expression almost rallied.

But how _would_ it end? That, he admitted, he didn't know.

"Goodnight, Christopher." She kissed him gently on the cheek then. He returned the kiss softly, chastely on her lips.

"Good night, Sam."


	5. Chapter 5

/ / / / / / / /

"Ah. I thought I heard someone get up," Iain Stewart said, as he appeared at the door to the front room. In truth, Christopher had not managed to get himself off to bed at all. He'd sat there staring at the coals from the fire for an hour after Sam had gone upstairs. "Might I get you something?" the older man wanted to know.

"I can't sleep, it seems," Christopher said, sounding apologetic. He looked at the man in his slippers and robe, and concluded he had interrupted the vicar's midnight snack. Pushing at his knees, Foyle stood. "And I thought, perhaps, I could borrow a book." It seemed the most likely thing to say.

"Come see what we have then. Through here, in my study. Would you care for Shakespeare?"

"I beg you, no. Not tonight," Foyle said with a smile as he followed along.

"Do you know which is Sam's favorite?" the vicar asked with a look that was too happy for the hour.

"It would either have to be Hamlet because that is the closest to a good murder mystery. Or something filled with confusion, injustice put right, and the notion that love wins out," Christopher said with a quirk to his expression. "So, I would say "As You Like It."

"Quite right!"

"It isn't a fair test, really," Foyle admitted with a sheepish look. "Sam and I have discussed all the plays we jointly remember on some of our longer car rides."

Iain Stewart nodded and then looked down for a moment. With that, the detective could sense the mood in the room change. Reverend Stewart continued to peruse one end of the study's long bookcase, while Christopher pretended to look over the titles at the other. "Sam explained... that you are a widower," the vicar said, softly.

"Yes." Foyle guessed that Sam would have told her parents that years ago. But it was tonight that it was most relevant to her father.

The Reverend Stewart turned from the books to look sympathetically toward the other man. "It must have been very difficult to manage - your own grief and your son's."

Ordinarily, Foyle did his best not to entertain questions about this topic. And usually, people seemed to know they should avoid it. But vicars are not exactly ordinary people, Christopher thought. Like doctors, they are trained to try at those things that pain us. And like detectives, they are accustomed to difficult questions.

Christopher would not dodge the topic. Not tonight. He could not deny that Stewart had a right to know _something_ of the mental state of the man who had come to his house over his daughter.

"I'm not sure I managed the grief at all, honestly." Foyle looked away then, and put a finger to a title as if that held his attention. "But you wake up and realize that a year has past. Then two. That it's been 6 months since your son has told you he hates you and wishes his mother was there in your place. You're view of what constitutes progress changes."

When Foyle looked to back to the vicar, he saw acceptance there and understanding - rather than any sort of judgement. "Grief has no remedy that we can merely take," the elder man said. "No time table that we can follow, despite what well wishers tell us." Stewart's words seemed heart felt to Christopher. This was no sermon or well practiced speech. "It is hard to remember sometimes that God wants the living to go on and to go on living _well_. It sounds so passive. 'Going on.' As if it's easy. When it's not."

Christopher nodded as he weighed the words, but turned his head away.

It had been a long time since he had thought what he was actually meant to do with his life.

"I have Homer here," Sam's father offered. The words may have sounded distracted, but the smile showed the man was there to listen most patiently.

"I will consider that." Foyle studied the vicar now and wondered how it was that he found himself talking about all of these things. He thought, perhaps, it was the man's manner. Reverend Stewart asked tough questions of him, yes. But he did not make assumptions.

And, Christopher thought with a half smile, how could he not respect a man who had braved hours locked in a shed with a hurt and angry Emily Stewart?

It felt not _good_, but rather, _necessary_, to talk about this suddenly. Foyle wanted to put things into words. "The immediate feeling," Christopher said, "was as if I was under water. I knew the world was there. I heard and saw everything. But I was... well..."

"Cut off from it all," Iain Stewart finished for him.

"Yes. You find you have to remind yourself that everything out there is real," Foyle continued. "Because all of it looks and feels different than the way things used to."

"Yes," Iain agreed, eagerly. "And now? How does it all feel now?"

Christopher blinked hard at the incisive question. It was one he had not thought to ask himself. "I'm behind glass," Foyle admitted. He had not stopped to choose the words. They had chosen him, he decided in that moment. "I don't know how to explain it other than that, or perhaps, that I am on a shelf." He shrugged away the trace of embarrassment over how revealing this conversation had become. And he continued, because he was intent on exploring this discovery. "I've thought that of myself, that I am removed. Even now, sometimes, there is a bit of a... disconnect. Out of habit maybe, more than grief. The world is all very real. But it isn't mine."

There were flashes then, not just of his memory, but of his emotions. And all of it was Sam. So untamed. So alive. At first, he had just enjoyed watching her. Living through her. And then, he realized, at some point he had begun to live a bit because of her. He had come off the shelf, at least, occasionally. And he had begun to love her.

"Sam is..." Foyle began searching for the right words. "She's unique. Compelling. Amazing, really." He thought about how Sam had - from the very first moment - blundered across the boundaries in him that everyone else had respected. How she had very much expected him to be someone who could be engaged, because she expected that of the whole world, really. "It is impossible to dismiss her," her would-be suitor said then. "Because there's no motive to her. No artifice."

"Even if she was not my daughter, I think I would still agree with you," Iain offered.

And when he looked back to Iain Stewart, Foyle told him, "I will take the Homer."

"A favorite?"

"Not at all," Christopher joked. "Something I know is likely to get me to sleep."

/ / / / / / / / / / /

He did sleep. But not at all well. After he had washed up and dressed come morning, he leaned his head near Sam's door. He heard nothing. He hoped at least she was getting some rest.

Faintly then, he could hear someone was downstairs. Even if it wasn't Sam, it meant it should be possible to get some tea or coffee and to push away this fog.

... ...

"You are up early, Mr. Foyle," Mrs. Stewart said, as he came through the kitchen's swinging door.

"You will have to call me 'Christopher.' Please," he replied amiably.

"Then 'Emily' it is, Christopher."

"Agreed," he told her with a nod and a smile.

"You are still up early," the woman insisted.

"No earlier than you."

She motioned to a chair on the far side of the table. "Occupational duties. I have to know what my husband is attempting each day before he does the attempting," she said, indicating the day planner on the table. "That way, I can make sure it all stands the likelihood of getting done." Her smile was warm and genuine in that moment. Full of satisfaction over the life she had, he decided.

"Plus," she continued as she set tea in front of him, "we are having οur guests over tonight." She paused. "Now. Would you tell me if something was bothering you?"

"You said you asked me out here to give me a chance, to be more decisive, about Sam," Foyle told her.

"Yes."

"I will admit to being surprised. Because it seems you are telling me that you don't have any objections about Sam's choice of me."

"Do I have objections? No. Concerns? Yes. Of course."

"Because I'm older," he assessed flatly.

"Iain is older than me. Quite a bit. So, I don't have the same worries over that that some mothers might. But if _**you**_ believe age will be a problem, than it likely will." She paused to let that sink in. "I've always thought that a woman would be a fool to take a lesser man, a man she didn't love, only because he was the same age. Iain was the right man for me. It was that simple. It isn't even that age was immaterial to falling in love with him. It may have been part of why I did. Some women are simply more suited to a man older than they are. Can you see that?"

"I suppose."

Emily finished pouring her own cup and then took up the seat across from him. When Foyle did not seem inclined to elaborate, she continued. "While this may be something you would pretend not to believe, I was not the easiest person to get along with when I was younger. I was... oh, I don't know, critical, too intense, too serious in one moment and too unpredictable in the next. Younger men did not find putting up with me very appealing, and I found few of them desirable in return." There was a thoughtful pause. "Herbert certainly found it too easy to lose his temper with me."

"There is no excuse for his sort of behavior," Foyle quickly put in. "I do run across women who seem to think they bring these things on themselves. But the sole fault lies with the person with the temper."

"So, Iain helped me understand," she said with a knowing smile.

"You met during the last war?"

"Yes, in 1915. I was volunteering at a hospital with my sister, and Iain was a chaplain there."

Foyle nodded and prepared to change the subject back to him and Sam ..."And you trust Sam's judgement. Her assessment of me." Foyle was obviously wondering why he had not come under more scrutiny as a potential suitor.

Mrs. Stewart's smile was unbridled then. "Sam thinks you are the most amazing man she has ever met. And my husband was impressed enough when he met you two years back that he decided to let our daughter stay and work with you. But remember, the reason the MTC sent Sam to you as a driver was that she knew the area. And the reason she knows the area, Christopher, is that her father and I know people all through the South Downs, and she had visited there a great deal when she was younger."

"You have been asking about me," he surmised with a smile of understanding.

"Yes."

He moved to stand and the woman's hand fixed on his sleeve. He sunk back into his chair with a worried look. "My concern, Christopher, has more to do with your natures. Not that I can claim to know you by anything other than reputation.

"She loves you so very much. And you are a very patient man, it seems, with her flights of fancy. But you know she won't always be that young woman who's so over the moon that she'll overlook everything. She may want more from you than it is in your nature to give. More of your time and attention. More conversation. More emotion or excitement. She can be so unrestrained and needy. So expressive, and you are..." She was at a momentary loss.

He pinched at his brow and closed his eyes in his discomfort. "And I am... not," he said with a tetchy sort of humor.

"I was going to say you are stoic and reserved. But I think I would have been wrong," she smiled. "I'm sorry. I have been quite rude with you this morning."

"If I was in your place, I do not know what I would do," Foyle offered.

The woman's face softened. And she looked at him with something like maternal sympathy. "Oh, Christopher. I am so sorry for you. I can't believe I am saying that. But it's true. She has so completely complicated everything for you, hasn't she?"

His face contorted before he managed his answer. "Yes."

Emily spoke so quietly then. So carefully. "I have told her that if you were likely to remarry you probably would have done so already. That she shouldn't push at you. That marrying you would be a horrible mistake if, when things cooled, you both found yourselves where you didn't want to be."

"And did she listen?"

"You know she didn't. I am hoping you will."

/

He stared at the buttered toast put in front of him. And Mrs. Stewart did him the kindness of excusing herself to check things in the vicar's study.

As Foyle sat there, he thought in his active, pounding sort of way. He pinched at his brow as he turned over the words that Emily Stewart had told him and the things Reverend Stewart had made him realize. He tried to picture and test at what a realistic future with Sam would look like.

Before, six months ago, his mind would try to dwell on Sam. But usually his thoughts were carefully limited to nothing beyond the words, _"This can't happen,"_ as he lazed into another guilty daydream of her.

He had had this managed. Just weeks ago. In Hastings. Whether that control had been a good thing or not, he no longer knew. But it was gone.

And the reality of his situation remained. There had to be a solution. Sam had made her decision, while he had vascilated. There was no concrete objection from her parents that he could leverage. He would have to figure out what was best. Soon.

It helped to be here, out of Hastings, and not on duty. It changed things, seeing Sam like this in a normal setting. He hadn't given any thought to how merely changing where he was would affect him. But he should have known he could not have dealt with how he felt for Sam in his house with all its memories. Or in town with the constant feelings of duties.

He was a man here. Just a man. For at least a day or two. It should have been impossible sharing space with Sam and her parents given the preposterous situation they found themselves in. And it had not been easy.

But, the Stewarts were not ones for formality. There were no airs, thank goodness. Certainly, Sam couldn't be who she was, he realized, if her parents did not have some of her traits. They were warm people. Good hearted. Enthusiastic and, apparently, utterly forgiving to have him within 6 miles of their daughter. It was as Sam had said, this was Cinderella at the ball. A time and place apart. Something enchanted that will alter them.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Foyle sat with Sam while she had an uncharacteristically quick and quiet breakfast. She could tell something was wrong, something more than just the general tension and indecision they had been living under since he had arrived.

She smiled at him as she stood to clear her place. But it wasn't until she turned back from the sink that she spoke more than a greeting.

"My parents tell me you aren't sleeping," she said. There was guilt in it, as if she worried she was the reason.

"No. I'm fine, really." He crossed the floor to her and took her hand. "Just... walk with me?"

/ / / / /

A/N: Thank you for all the reviews and feedback! I am so happy to know this is getting read. Well, I am off to dust before my visitors descend! Wish me luck. I hate dusting.


	6. Chapter 6

/

_Foyle sat with Sam while she had an uncharacteristically quick and quiet breakfast. She could tell something was wrong, something more than just the general tension and indecision they had been living under since he had arrived. _

_She smiled at him as she stood to clear her place. But it wasn't until she turned back from the sink that she spoke more than a greeting._

"_My parents tell me you aren't sleeping," she said. There was guilt in it, as if she worried she was the reason. _

"_No. I'm fine, really." He crossed the floor to her and took her hand. "Just... walk with me?"_

…

He said nothing as he helped her with her coat. She turned to him and tried to smile, but she was scared through. More frightened even then when they had chased the lorry that had run the road block. Almost as worried, she decided, as the day she had been locked in with a bomb.

She ghosted a hand up his lapel to touch his shoulder. "Is everything all right?" she asked in a very small voice.

"You know what I am thinking, so much of the time. Don't you, Sam?"

She shook her head, sure that she had never been so confused. And in his silent way then, he indicated the door. His smile, though, was a mere shade of its normal glory.

They left out the back and walked slowly across the lawn.

"But I don't know what I am thinking lately," he said. He looked down at his feet a moment before he wondered, "If we don't know who we are anymore, are we who people think we are?"

She pulled up short and reached to still him with a hand to his arm. "What are we talking about? Please, Christopher."

He was not making much sense, he realized when he looked up to see the confusion in her eyes. He was having two conversations at once. One in his head and one with Sam. "_Why_ do we get on so well? Is it that you are forgiving of who I am?"

"I think we just suit each other," she said, sounding surprised by the question. "I _**know**_ we do," she corrected. "We get along so easily. And I care for you, and you care..." Sam began.

"But I do not show it well."

It frustrated her that he could not see himself the way she saw him. "You are so amazing. Devoted, dedicated..." she told him.

"Devoted... to the point of living my life around the past?" he countered.

She couldn't stand watching him torture himself like this. "Right now, I think you are tired. And you are feeling put on the spot," she said, sympathetically. She reached for his hand, and he let her take it. But this intimacy felt off to both of them.

They walked further on until they came to a bench that was in a small stand of trees.

"And you think I make you... well, happy?" he asked.

"You know you do."

"Why? How?" Foyle insisted, sounding every inch a policeman.

"You want to know why I'm in love with you?" she said with disbelief.

"Yes."

Her worried mood lightened in that moment. "You are awfully easy to look at."

"I am?" He almost laughed, not having expected this.

"Mmm," she concurred, as she let her eyes drift across him. "It's true. And you are smart. Not that stuffy sort of impossible smart. A rather lovely kind of clever."

"Well, good," he tried to huff. Then he pulled a face and managed to look shy and uncomfortable for a second.

"And you're funny. Like now, when you are pretending that you are not. Then, you are so horribly sweet that you would feed cats with me," Sam told him with a lingering smile.

A touch of enjoyment was written on his face now, too, as he remembered that day. "I did doubt my actions could be appreciated by anyone but you."

She leaned in to kiss him quickly on the cheek in answer.

"Could I tell you a story?" she wondered.

He nodded, and she risked putting her hands to his arms to point him to the bench. They settled in next to each other.

"Have you read about Oona O'Neill and Charlie Chaplin?" Sam asked as she turned sideways to face him.

"Um, n-no," Christopher replied sounding suspicious.

"You've heard of Eugene O'Neill."

He gave her that sideways glance she knew so well. The one that came right before he would try to wind her up. "Writes plays, I believe," the dear man deadpanned, seeming pleased with himself.

"Oona is his daughter. She is the one in the papers."

"Not any papers, I read."

"Well, no," Sam admitted with a smile. She'd seen the article in her landlady's magazine from the States. "She's in love with Charlie Chaplin. Pursued him quite... heatedly you might say."

"The point, Sam? Although, I fear I may not want to hear it..."

"Chaplin's more than 30 years older," Sam told him with a smirk.

He leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. "Oh, I'll bet Mr. O'Neill is _thrilled_."

"I dunno about that. But Mr. Chaplin is!" Her grin now was uncontainable. She tried to hide it, afraid that she would lose ground in this discussion if she appeared to be taking things too lightly.

"You are telling me I should risk it. Take you on?"

She came forward to mimic his posture. "If we are right for each other, then we are right. It's our time together that tells us that. Not our ages," she told him, quietly.

"That might be," he allowed. And that was a great deal more than he had ever managed to allow before.

"We've done well together. It's been two and a half years. More," she prompted avidly.

He rubbed across his forehead as if chasing a thought.

"But that's not together, Sam," he said without looking at her. "We don't know..." _We don't know how we would be together in six or ten years time. Will you end up resenting me as I prematurely age you? Have I spent so much time alone that I can't live with someone again, or love you the way you deserve._ "How can we know?"

He was beginning to sound uncharacteristically frustrated. But she was not deterred.

"_**I**_ know. I've never been closer to anyone. We've had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together," she said, too eagerly. "Been bombed and shot at. I've stayed at your house. We've argued and made up. I've told you things no one else knows..." She breathed hard then and her voice got very quiet. "And when you talk to me, sometimes, you look at me as if I make you... quite content."

"You do. But the problem is not just that I'm older, Sam."

"I know that's not all," she said, leaning closer. "But I can't be of any help unless you admit what else is bothering you."

_And I shouldn't be telling you,_ he thought. _If I want you to forget about me, I should be saying those words your mother so wisely suggested._

_'I don't love you. I never will. I am in love with someone else.'_

_Only it's not true. Whether I should have you or not, I don't want to be without you._

"You know I was married before," he said needlessly.

"It isn't that you were married before," Sam said intently. "It's that you are still in love with her."

"It's not... I don't know how to explain. I am not a man who has moved forward. Time has. I know. Andrew is grown. Rosalind has been dead almost 11 years. And I have tried to root myself..." he admitted.

She whispered her encouragement. "You can tell me."

"It sounds wrong," he said, struggling with his words. "But sometimes I feel as if the years are erasing everything. Some people feel as if they gain things as the years go on, I suppose. And I would feel that I was losing something. I was married 13 years..." he trailed off, lost.

"It's not at all the same as what you've been through. But that feeling... " Sam said, "I look in the mirror and see myself in uniform, and it makes the old me seem like I never existed."

"The past gets a little bit less real every morning," he supplied.

"It can be frightening," she told him. "Because there is no stopping change. No controlling so much of what happens." And they understood each other. "But I visit my folks and the vicarage. I try to look more to the future. To be hopeful about it. And it helps... And you have Andrew," she stressed. "But it's worse for you, obviously. I know it is. I haven't lost what you have. And I don't feel that I've done anything wrong over the changes in my life... I think you do."

He seemed so wounded in that moment that she didn't want to ask him any more. But she was so close to an answer.

"It's because of the past that you can't..." she started to say.

_You can't love me_, she was thinking.

"Oh, Sam," he lamented.

"Is it that you are that sad still? Or do you feel guilty? I am not trying to judge you or tell you how to feel. I just want to understand."

He smiled sadly, thankful for the gentleness in her words. "I do feel guilty," he confessed. He stood then, seeming suddenly agitated. It was as if he needed space because the words and memories were pressing at him. "It is a horrible thing to admit..." he took a deep breath and winced then. "It isn't the grief of someone missing a perfect marriage. What is worse perhaps, is the guilt someone feels over losing the chance to fix the things gotten wrong."

"You don't think you were a good husband?" She knew she sounded horribly naïve.

Like a good policeman, this woman did not shy away from the tough and important questions.

Being impressed with Sam, didn't make it any easier for him to give her answers.

He breathed hard and considered the question quite seriously. "I wasn't terrible. I hope." He shook his head. "Horribly ordinary. Less than I wanted to be. I worked too much. I was cross at times. Stubborn. Reticent. Because I _always_ thought there was time, I suppose."

"But do you truly think that your wife would not forgive you those things?"

"I wouldn't expect her to. Oh, Sam. You are much too willing to see the good in me."

"Forgiveness requires that you be humble and sincere," she said rising to touch his sleeve. "That's what I've been taught. You _are_ those. So, if you want forgiveness..." She stopped as something about Christopher's manner spoke to her. "But you don't want to forgive yourself," she concluded as she released him.

"I can't fix anything. You have no idea..." Foyle challenged. _No idea how unhappy Rosalind sometimes was._

Sam seemed surprised at the poor man's thinking. "We can't fix the past. God does not expect we can," Sam said intently. "My father has always insisted that that is why we have to heal what we can and then set our eyes on the future."

"It isn't that easy."

Sam could see that.

"Did she expect you would never find someone else?" she whispered.

"No," he said, quickly. "She was quite practical. She wasn't selfish or spiteful."

"She'd want you to be happy."

Foyle grimaced. And with a perverse touch of humor, he told her, "Yes. I'm just not very good at it. Not when it means risking someone else's happiness."

"What does Andrew want for you?" she asked, carefully.

His manner stiffened as he thought about his son's forceful meddling over Christmas. "I'm not really giving him a vote," Foyle said, gruffly.

Sam paused before deciding to risk the words that came to mind. "He is half you. But half his mother. I would think he is the perfect person to help..."

"Enough, Sam. Please." Foyle cut her off quickly and too harshly. Then he followed with, "We should... I'm sure there's something we should do to help get ready for tonight." The thoughts were swamping him, and he couldn't contend with everything that was in his head.

"I'll go," she told him, looking wounded. "I'll help my mother. I'll … someone will come find you when we are ready for lunch."

/


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: A long chapter that I considered cutting in two. As is fairly typical for me, I have pushed the characters to a bit of insanity here. Thank you for reading and especially for the comments. Goodness knows, I said this would end up being about 6 or 7 chapters long. I was horribly wrong. It will be much longer. _

* * *

><p>Foyle couldn't stop his thoughts. And he wouldn't try to stop them this time. Decency, honesty. The regard he had for Sam. It all demanded he follow this through. He paced in front of the bench where they had been sitting, and occasionally he looked up as if he would question the horizon and the bare winter trees.<p>

"_What does Andrew want for you?" _Sam had asked.

Oh, Christopher knew what Andrew wanted. His son had spent almost 3 days with him over Christmas. In close quarters with only the two of them, the conversations had gotten horribly and painfully redundant. Andrew concerned himself with so very little. The young man didn't care about politics or plays. Or even taking his own romantic life seriously, it seemed. But he did suddenly worry, obsess even, over his father's future.

During his visit, it had all been light pushes at Foyle until that last morning there. Then, suddenly, Andrew had seemed more desperate to be heard.

"_I want to know that you have someone, Dad. Why can't you be sensible? Why can't you wake up and realize that you are alive? And denying that isn't noble any more. Denying it is foolish... and hurtful." _

Foyle didn't like the things Andrew had said or the way he had said them. But now, with the benefit of hindsight, Christopher acknowledged that he himself might be moved to speak the same way to someone he cared enough about.

There was something to what Sam had said, he had to admit. Andrew was part him and part Rosalind. Foyle could see that Andrew's fierce way of caring about him could be a bit of his mother, certainly. If he thought of it that way, it made it easier to forgive his son for everything he had said. It made it easier to listen and to let it all sink in. With his future in doubt, watching his father ignore what life could offer was bound to make Andrew angry.

Because, God, it was a glorious thing to be in love, Foyle thought, as he watched Sam walk for the house. It was a gift. Just as being alive was. Those were such simple thoughts, but still, not ones Foyle had entertained in the years since Rosalind had died.

_Gifts_, the detective's mind supplied again. _Ones I have pushed away_. And there were many people who would say it was deeply wrong to refuse what God was granting him. Perhaps that is what Andrew had been trying to say. Or what Sam's father had hinted at.

It was, most likely, what Hugh Reid had been trying to tell him the last time they met.

/ / /

Hugh Reid had gotten on to him when Foyle had stopped into the man's house to discuss taking leave in conjunction with the weekend.

The distance of miles and time did not stop Foyle from tensing across his neck as he remembered the meeting now.

Christopher looked to the vicarage. If Sam was safely in the kitchen, he could get up to the guest room without running into her. He was exhausted, more mentally than physically, and he needed an hour or two on his own.

With purposely measured steps, he navigated from the back door to his borrowed room. Once closed in there, Christopher looked out the window and let his eyes fall unfocused on the expanse of lawn. He could hear his old friend. He tried to remember what Hugh had said, just as he had tried to block it all out at the time.

… … …

"_You figure you might as well take a vacation - as you have no driver?" Hugh laughed before he saw that Foyle was in no mood for it. "Sorry. Where are you going, Christopher? I thought Andrew was just down here?"_

"_I've been invited to a 'do' for New Years'."_

"_That doesn't sound like your sort of thing," Reid said, as he handed his friend a drink. _

_Foyle hedged, physically, if not with words. His shoulders pitched forward. _

"_What have you gotten yourself into, Christopher?" the man asked more gently at the sight of his discomfort. "Where are you going, really?"_

"_A party. Or possibly a hanging. Mine. In Lyminster."_

_._

Christopher knew it had been a ridiculous error to mention Lyminster if he had really wanted to avoid Sam as a topic. But then he would not lie to Hugh.

_._

"_Lyminster? Lyminster..." Hugh echoed. "This is to do with Sam?" _

"_W-well, she is home there for a spot of leave..."_

"_Which I heard she has extended... " the suspicious man added._

_Foyle ignored that comment as so much bait. "And her parents asked me to come out for dinner on New Year's. Well, to spend a day or two..."_

_Hugh paused and took a seat across from Foyle. "So, what is going on, then?"_

"_I had thought I'd explained that. Sam's parents' have invited me out." Foyle tried to sound innocently indignant, but missed by a mile._

_._

As he replayed all of this on New Year's Eve, Christopher realized that when the discussion had shifted to Sam, he had become embarrassingly defensive. That night, he hadn't considered Reid's words as anything other than another unwelcome intrusion. Feeling pushed, he hadn't really listened. But he should have. Hugh knew him. On any other topic, Foyle would have heard out his friend.

On any other topic. Just not on Sam.

_._

"_All right," Hugh soothed in Foyle's memory. "I had thought her parents might be trying to prevent her coming back or that she wasn't happy here. Actually, I had hoped you were going to tell me something else completely."_

"_There is nothing else to tell."_

"_Ever since Sam was in hospital a few months back... I've noticed, Christopher. You were always a strange pair, the way you got on." Foyle tried to object, but Hugh held up his hand. "You did nothing wrong. It wasn't anything you said or did. Honestly, man. Just the way you... are together. And after that scare with the anthrax... God, Christopher... I wish you'd marry her." _

_Reid's blunt honesty was quite literally startling._

"_What?"_

"_I saw you at the hospital with her," Reid admitted uneasily._

"_Well, I didn't see you." But Foyle pictured the scene. Hugh had likely come on to the ward when Foyle had been totally preoccupied with an unconscious Sam. He had sat in a fog for an hour, his head bent near hers. "What were you doing there, Hugh?" Foyle wondered. _

"_I was as worried about you as I was about Sam." And the unspoken sentiment was that, having been through Rosalind's death had made Christopher Foyle someone who should not be left alone on hospital vigils. "I had thought I could show up to hospital, and it would be a help to you. Because I knew you would be worried. Because sitting by someone's bedside would have to be..._

"_Very difficult, yes," Foyle finished for him as he raised his glass and swallowed hard._

"_And she isn't just a 'someone,' is she Christopher? Did you try to keep Sam at arm's length hoping you might worry about her less? It's too late, I am betting, to protect yourself from any hurt," Hugh said gently. _

"_Oh, bloody hell," Foyle muttered as he rumbled to his feet. He announced he would take his leave and moved for the door. But Reid with his longer legs was there first._

"_How does a man care so much about getting things right for everyone else, but not for himself? You work as hard as you do so that when this bloody war is over there is something left. Some chance for a future. _

"_Forgive me, Christopher. It's as simple or as difficult as facing the right direction. No one is asking you to forget the past, but all you seem to look to is the hurt. Could you just acknowledge something more? And for yourself this time? I **am** pushing you..."_

"_Right in one, Hugh! Yes! God. You are."_

"_And I haven't before. All these years I have never told you to just get passed it. Never told you that_ _you had grieved long enough."_

_That stilled him. Christopher stopped, recognizing there was something to what Hugh was saying._

"_But when I see you lately?" Reid continued carefully. "You are different, Christopher. You want this chance. And I worry you_ _won't take it."_

Foyle's heart was racing now in this bedroom in Lyminster, just from remembering the words they had traded. He had fought everything that Hugh had told him.

Facing the right direction? Quitting the hurt? Those ideas hadn't even registered when allhe had so desperately wanted was to get out of Hugh's study.

Still, he knew he had taken his first steps at getting past the hurt as soon as he had left Hastings. Standing with Sam and looking out at a horizon he didn't know... he hadn't felt rooted in the past. It had felt like a beginning.

_Could it be a beginning,_ he forced himself to wonder?

_And don't tell me I'm not able to take a chance when it's required, Hugh. I'm here, aren't I? I kissed her. I didn't tell you that_, he thought, tugging on his waistcoat. _And when I kissed her here? That spot down by the river?... It was marvelous_. _That woman is marvelous_.

_I think, well... I am fairly certain, I'm about to take some more chances. _

/

Foyle sleuthed his way through the house. The front room and dining room showed signs of preparations being made for tonight's party. The furniture was grouped differently in the front room, he saw, and there was a leaf extending the dining room table.

He found Mrs. Stewart in the kitchen, and she professed to need no help. Reverend Stewart was at a sick parishioner's house, Emily told him, while Sam was off hunting for table cloths.

"Sit down," she told him. "We'll eat soon."

He would need to navigate lunch with the two Stewart women before he could reasonably get his driver alone, he knew. He'd waited so long with this pressing at him, he told himself he could make it through one more meal.

They lunched informally in the kitchen, talking mainly about the gathering that was planned for that night. There would be just four others joining them, Emily explained. Mrs. Stewart kept looking to Sam to add something, but the younger woman was uncharacteristically quiet. Christopher soon felt some obligation to contribute to conversation.

"It sounds very nice," he said, too distractedly.. But he had very little to say on the subject of New Year's celebrations. He would refrain from admitting that this would be the first year in many that he had not merely gone to bed at his usual time.

"Sam. Could you finish getting the dining room ready for tonight?" Mrs. Stewart asked, as she moved to clear the table.

"I'll help," Foyle put in, as he stood. Sam's look was openly worried at the offer.

Christopher followed close behind as Sam pushed through into the dining room. As soon as the door swung shut behind them, he stepped close behind her and laid a hand at the small of her back to still her. He lowered his head to whisper at her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Sam. I was short with you before..." His fingers tugged at her waist unconsciously.

"About Andrew," she said.

"I've had Andrew after me... about finding someone," he told her. "About remarrying."

Her eyebrows arched up, and she turned to more fully face him. "I didn't know. I'm sorry. So, I was sort of piling on."

He nodded. "And I couldn't discuss it," he explained slowly. "And it isn't just Andrew who has been abusing me. Hugh Reid has told me... a number of difficult things. Things I didn't really hear until he was no longer saying them, um, if that makes sense. There is a great deal that seems clearer finally. Here."

"Good. I mean... is that good?"

"I think so."

She touched him then, as if compelled. She laid a hand to his face and then lovingly traced the lines at his eyes. And when her fingers worked through his hair, he suddenly saw himself the way she saw him.

Or he tried very hard to.

This woman knew exactly how old he was, and she seemed to almost appreciate the signs of age in him. She did not love him despite his graying hair or his reticence. She simply loved him. His eyes fell closed, and he leaned closer as he relaxed under her touch.

_It could be like this, Foyle. If you'd let her._

The sound of the swinging door made Christopher's eyes snap open. Sam quickly dropped her hands to where they could rest more innocently at Folye's lapels as her mother walked in.

"Sam," Mrs. Stewart said, as if nothing was at all out of the ordinary. "Could you get those garlands on the sideboard. I thought we'd use them as a center piece." The elder woman placed a tray on the table then. Only a raised eyebrow betrayed the woman's unease.

Sam's mother smiled weakly at Foyle and then surveyed the state of the room. "It's coming along nicely," she announced. And she turned to push back into the kitchen.

"I'm supposed to give her a hand with things," Sam said quietly. "You are supposed to read or... something."

"Those are the rules?" he joked.

"Apparently."

/

He had managed to distract himself for a very uncomfortable 90 minutes. The need to talk to Sam was more than he could put aside any longer.

When he walked into the kitchen, he only found Emily Stewart. She stopped her work to wipe her hands on her apron and greet him. "Sam's outside feeding the birds some old bread scraps."

Christopher found Sam quite easily. The young woman wasn't far from the back door, just far enough to be out of sight around the corner.

He launched into the conversation that had been brewing in his head. He'd lost his ability for any sort of small talk. "I worry, Sam. That you deserve someone easier. Less work."

She shook her head, looking confused. "Something's gotten to you, Christopher. Please, don't say it hasn't. What happened this morning? Something obviously did, some conversation, before I came down for breakfast."

"Your mother... expressed her reservations," Folye informed her.

"My mother wants us to be sure that we are... well, sure. That's all. She had the same talk with me." Sam grew visibly more upset as she stood there. "Christopher, I can't counter anything my mother told you. I can't _**tell**_ you we belong together. Because I have finally realized that either you believe that without any convincing or you don't." She sighed, sounding hurt, and she looked up at the gray sky before she managed to continue. "I can't make you love me. Really love me, the way I do you... Dear God. You have no idea how it ..."

He had never heard her sound so agonized, and he felt her words as much as heard them. Her voice pierced him. Tore at him. He'd let her doubt how much he cared about her. It was supposed to make things easier, but it hadn't. And he couldn't stand to see her hurt this way. It was too much.

"Oh, God, Sam," Christopher croaked, as he reached for her. He wrapped her up in his arms and cradled her, rocked her, the way he had wanted to so many, many times over the past year. "I do." With a hand to her cheek, he raised her head from where she had buried it in his coat. His palm was wet with her tears, and it made him ache all the more. "I do love you, Sam. I do." He sighed with the relief of finally telling her. And then pressed his forehead to hers as she wound her arms tighter around him. "I thought it would be selfish to tell you. That you would do better not knowing. Because even if I love you, I don't know that I can make you happy."

"You've just made me happier than I've ever been," she told him.

"But I can be difficult. Distant?" he asked.

"Stop, Christopher," she said, sounding frustrated. "Stop finding fault with who you think you are or with who someone else thinks you might be. Do you really believe that I fell in love with you, but that I don't know who you are? That I spent the last two and a half years with you, but I'm blind?"

"So... I'm perfect?" he teased with a smile he bit down on. "Everything you ever wanted?'

"All right. I'll admit," she said with a final sniffle. "When we are working, _sometimes_ you are a bit prickly over a difficult case."

"Prickly?" he said with amusement he did not want to feel.

"Just during the worst of our cases, mind you..." She kissed him quickly as if to soothe any perceived insult. "You are different when it is just me, even if we are working. You must know you are. So, patient. Caring. And fun."

"I feel different with you," he admitted. _Because,_ _I __**feel**__ when I am with you. Having you there beside me has kept me from being jaded. From turning hard. _

"Then there is this man you've been here, the one who kisses me... and..." her words dissolved away as her blush rose. She traced her finger tips over his lips in a way that made him catch his breath. "It isn't as if you need to say everything, Christopher. Because I know you. Because you have a smile, a thousand smiles. And there is a certain one, that is you and so pleased that it is as if you are yelling from roof tops.

"Sometimes...when we are alone," she continued. "It is as if you forget to be who you are... or that you remember... "

"And somehow... you prefer me, as old and prickly as I am, to any other man?" he tried to make it sound light-hearted.

"Do you think I would rather have the wrong man tell me he loves me 20 times a day? Or that I want someone more like me. Talkative... A bit mad? Someone positively Tiggerish?" She managed to smile at him, and his face did relax a tad in reply. "That would be the the last thing I need. I can't even imagine something that frightening. So... Absolutely, I am going to tell you one more time. I'm in love with you. That means I want you the way you are. You keep me grounded in a lovely, lovely way. But ..." She stopped there, although there was clearly more on her mind.

"Go on, Sam. Please. This is important."

"But, if you worry that I'll need something from you and resent it when I don't get it, you could tell me I might just ask it of you. When we are alone. This weekend," she amended so that she did not seem to be asking for something as impossible as a future.

"You wouldn't resent that, having to ask me?"

"No."

"Ask me," he whispered, in a humorously impatient voice.

"Could you put your arms around me again. Hold me... very, very tight. Please. And tell me just one more time that you really love me?"

"I do love you, Sam. So much," he whispered as he drew her closer.

She smiled. Touched his cheek. "Would you..." He didn't need telling, he found. He kissed her. And for the longest time.

They eased apart at last, and she settled her head against his shoulder. Words came easier now, he found, with her eyes off him. He took a deep breath and told her, "I never thought I would be in a position to start something with you. But I love you. I have. These past few weeks, I have worked at every reason this should be hopeless. But if you'll have me..."

It was left hanging there, awkwardly. She couldn't be sure precisely what he was offering.

She pushed back to look him in the face. "So, you are saying we can be together?" she stammered nervously. She had done nothing to clear up the ambiguity, she realized.

And he must have thought things did not need explaining, because he launched into his concerns. "First, we need to understand each other. It is important to me that you know what you are getting into."

"All right," Sam said with a small quaver.

Suddenly, he wasn't sure what to say first. He was completely unused to this feeling of thudding confusion that was filling his brain. He stammered his way into the most immediate concern. "It's going to be uncomfortable at the station and even around town when we get back. There could be accusations, rumors. Very cruel assumptions as to why you would take up with me. And I with you."

She looked worried. "It won't affect your job though?"

"N-No." He said this quickly and then paused to stare at her, surprised that that was her first concern. "I can't seem to quit, so I doubt they'll sack me. But it will affect yours."

"I know. But that's small stuff, really."

He stepped closer again as if to study her. "Small stuff, Sam?" He had not expected her to be so blasé about leaving the Hastings Police.

"If we are talking about being together... well, long term. Then all of that other stuff is really nothing in the big scheme. It will all blow over."

"If we are discussing the 'big scheme' and the 'long term,' then I want to be clear about the things that worry me." He started to pace with a hand to his head.

"Go ahead," she said with determination.

The flood gates opened, and all his practical reservations rushed to the fore. "What I do, being a policeman, is important to me," he said with his typical talent for understatement. "And that means that I... we would be in Hastings.

"Fine," she readily agreed.

"Unless someone ever let's me do anything else in this war..."

"...in which case we would go somewhere else. Christopher, I don't mind," she told him fervently.

"And when the MTC and the Commissioner's Office finally figure out what is going on, you'll be out of a job. I'm sorry about that. I will miss you having you at the office. But you won't see me during the day."

The unspoken bit here was, "A_nd you can't be hanging about the station, Sam."_

"Can I walk you to work or would that be horribly embarrassing for you," she asked with a small smile.

"Eh, no," he said blinking quickly and stopping his pacing for a moment. "I wouldn't be... You can walk me in."

"And pick you up at the end of the day?"

"Yes. Fine," he said quickly, sounding off balance. He wanted her warned. Cautious. And she was taking this all too well.

"Come in for lunch?" she quizzed, her eyebrows rising hopefully.

"Once a week. Maybe... Maybe twice. But you can't call the office unless there is some emergency. That's just the way it is. And you know there will be nights I work late."

"Yes. Yes. Yes. I guess I've gotten used to how it's been these past two years," she conceded.

"There is more you need to hear, Sam. If we are going to be together... if we get married..." he nearly stumbled then as he realized they had been discussing this for God-knows-how-long and that was the first time he had said the word 'married.' He winced over the debacle he was making of this, but he pressed on. "There are more serious considerations. You'll out live me," he stressed. "By decades," he said even more harshly.

"Most likely," she admitted swallowing hard.

As long as he was hitting her hard, he figured he should continue. "And before that, there could be years where I am not worth much to you."

There was honesty and then there was just hitting below the belt as far as Sam was concerned. She let up the most frustrated noise he ever heard her utter, and he was convinced an oath was lurking in it. "Now, Christopher, you are taking this too far. You tell me you love me. That you can picture us together – long term, married even - and then you try to ruin it, all at the same time!"

"It should all be considered. All of it, understood," he said sternly, but with a tremble of emotion. "You have to think about what the future realistically holds. How will you cope being stuck with me when I am older? You will still be young. Many women... Many women take a lover under those circumstances."

"What?" she barked.

"When I am insensible and in my dotage. Just... I never want to know."

Sam had never seen him like this. She shook her head and narrowed her eyes at this man she no longer seemed to know. "I think you are plenty insensible _right now_ for suggesting that," she said, her voice rising. "I haven't ever 'taken a lover' in any real sense, and you want to know if I'll take another 35 years from now?"

He ignored her pique and pushed forward. "And I'll want you at a course. You are too clever not to try your hand at something. Something _you _want to do. Nursing, accounts. Even teaching classics. I don't care. As long as it gives you some means of support if my pension proves too little. Besides, I won't have people saying...

"So much for avoiding any _paternal_ aspect to our relationship!" she fumed with a punishing ring of irony. "You are most definitely acting like you're my father now!"

"... I _**won't**_ have people saying I have derailed your life or that you could have done something more if you hadn't been saddled with me."

"I hope you don't think this counts as a proposal, Christopher. I have had proposals, and _**this**_ is more akin to being hit by a bus," she said angrily.

"I am only trying to be practical." But he wasn't, he knew. This was more about Christopher Foyle being a tad petrified and out of his depth.

"You want to be practical? Fine. Absolutely. Get some paper, and we'll write it all down and sign it. Do you want to stipulate who does the washing up? Or where we'll... hang wet towels? I already know how you like your eggs. We could draw straws for who gets what side of the bed? While you are at it, you can write down how often we are expected to... meet in the middle, so to say. Although, you have pretty much killed _that_ particular desire."

"Sam!" he said, recoiling.

"Ha!" she announced with juvenile glee. She was perversely happy that she had managed to shock him. "You know you are just wonderful with practicality, but complete rubbish with fairy tales. I have no idea what you think you have accomplished with this discussion."

They glared at each other in silence then.

Sam groaned and looked at the sky a moment later when she heard her mother call her name. "Anne's here early, Samantha," her mother said, as she leaned out the back door. "You are out here, aren't you?"

It was just lovely, but completely ridiculous of the woman to pretend she had not heard their raised voices.

"Yes! Yes," Sam hollered back. "I'll... I'll be right in."

Sam walked briskly for the door with Foyle trailing. As she passed through, her friend tried to quietly ask her, "Is that your new man?"

Sam ignored the comment, but Foyle could not resist a dour quip. "No, I'm the old one."

/


	8. Chapter 8

**_Author's Note: A new chapter... small and satisfying like a good pastry. I was so happy to hear someone missed my updates. So, here you go. Hot from the oven. I am sure there are plausible explanations for the appearance of home baked goodies in this chapter._**

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><p>Mrs Stewart had seated them so far apart at dinner that it made even catching Sam's eye a challenge. As Foyle looked up from his plate, he saw that it was Anne who currently had her ear.<p>

Anne, he had learned, was a school friend of Sam's. She seemed a surprisingly sensible woman. There was also a young man there, Edward, who was recently ordained. And the Wilsons, an older couple. Well, older, as in far closer to Foyle's age than Sam's, he thought with a sigh.

It all seemed so horribly staged to Foyle's suspicious mind. The young woman there to give Sam serious, but age appropriate, counsel. The young man there as a reminder of the type of match she had previously been expected to make. And the older couple, a show of what lay ahead when one chose well, abandoned fancy and love's dead ends.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / /

It was an unremarkable party after dinner, one Foyle felt he could likely survive. There was music on the wireless as people talked in the front room. Reverend Stewart stood explaining something to Anne and the Wilsons. Foyle was standing awkwardly with Edward and Sam... and then something about Sam's mother caught his eye.

Mrs. Stewart's face turned absolutely puckish when she heard a tune (one that Edward was busy decrying as horribly old fashioned) come over the air. She boosted the volume and then interrupted her husband in mid lecture. She removed a book from his hands and placed it quickly on a table. The man's objection was half hearted as his wife stepped into his arms and sweetly demanded to dance with him.

Christopher found he had to look away. It almost hurt too much to see them together. Each subtle touch and smile spoke for a year of joy and ease.

It was all too much when he could not manage a conversation with Sam without making a mess of things.

He was well ensconced in his melancholy when the sound of Edward's voice caused him to look up.

"Do you want to dance?" Edward was asking Sam.

"You just said you hated this song," she said with surprise.

"Well... I..."

And in Foyle's memory, this was the only time it had taken anyone more than 3 seconds to get Sam to waltz, foxtrot or even folk dance.

She looked to Christopher then.

"Things?" Foyle said, awkwardly. "In the … kitchen."

"Pastries," Sam supplied as she turned now, too. "Or..."

"Yes."

And even then Anne was smiling and walking toward them to rescue Edward.

.

"Do you dance? You know, I don't even know," Sam said to Foyle once they were safe behind the kitchen door.

It was a perfect invitation for the man to take her in his arms and apologize or even just dance.

But instead, Christopher was looking at his feet. "Sam, I..."

"Right," she answered, deciding that was a 'no' to that dance question. She had also cut him off because it seemed as if he was working himself up to something more complicated than 'I'm sorry'. And this just wasn't the time or place for all that. "Please, I've thought about it, Christopher. And I think it would be a really good idea if you didn't say anything much just now."

"Sam..." he began again. He was intent on making amends, even though he knew this was horrid timing. He wanted her some place secluded so he could explain, but he just couldn't wait.

The door pushed open then and an over eager looking Edward walked in.

"Edward!" Sam said. "I... I thought you were dancing with Anne."

"She said I had two left feet..."

_Figures. _Christopher thought. And his eyebrows arched up as he tried to hide his amusement in a tortured grin.

"I thought I'd help in here," Edward concluded.

Sam grabbed a hot mitt and marched over to the oven. "We're fine," she announced. And she swatted Foyle on the arm with the mitt as she passed him. "Stop it," she whispered.

"I didn't say anything," he protested quietly.

"You don't have to."

He let out a little hum that was him trying so very hard not to make her any more angry than she was.

Sam pulled open the oven then, and Edward wandered back out the door.

"Well, I'll be! There is actually something to be rescued from the oven," she said with a grin.

Christopher grabbed a towel so he could pull the second tray. They placed the undersized, and most likely under-sugared desserts on the stove top and then failed to move at all apart.

He looked at her as she pretended to study the trays, and the emotion flooded him. _It could be like this, Foyle. If you'd let it. Dinners and desserts. Shared secrets. Her knowing what you're thinking. If she'll forgive you. _

"You're so beautiful, Sam," he whispered.

"Don't," she said quickly. But she felt herself weaken toward him. "Don't," she echoed, because she knew they couldn't do this. Whatever talk they needed to have could not be now. Not here. And not with him getting the advantage so quickly with those words.

Still, her posture softened, and she swayed an inch in his direction before she told him, "We should go. Someone will be in in a second. My mother. Or Anne..."

"Not Anne," Christopher said with a quiet smile. "She told me she's on my side at dinner."

"Ah..."

"But we'll go back in, and you can tell your mother..." he began.

"... the pastries are done, yes," Sam finished.

…

An uneasy, unforgiven hour later, Foyle was... well, not hiding, per se, but making himself useful in the kitchen again. This time with Mrs. Stewart.

"Have either of you seen Samantha?" her father asked as he leaned in.

"Perhaps she is with Edward or Anne," Mrs. Stewart suggested.

"I saw those two a bit ago in the other room," Christopher said with a hook of his thumb. "Sam wasn't there."

"Well, I'll get Edward to look for her..."

"Oh, please, don't bother him," Foyle said as he had a sudden realization. He knew exactly where she would be. He eased past the vicar to get his coat from the hall. _There was no need to send a boy to do a man's job. Besides, she had, no doubt, returned to the scene of the crime._

… … …

"Sam? Where are you hiding?" he asked the darkness as he took quick strides from the door.

"I'm not hiding, strictly speaking."

He stopped when he heard her voice, thinking this might all be easier if they didn't face each just yet. "Good. Well, I just wanted to make sure you are all right. Because... um, before..." he trailed off hopelessly.

And Sam stepped into rescue him.

"Because before there was a madman out here, carrying on about work visits and taking courses," she said, impishly.

"Yes. A rather confused sort. Not at his best."

"I thought you might be here about him. Not to worry. I chased him off," Sam called back.

"Well done. Yes. Well, good." There was a pause then and a step forward toward her voice. "Please. I'm sorry, Sam. And I'm not as worried. I think you can handle anything. Even me."

She slowly came into view from the shadows. He had to laugh at the shy smile on her face. He bit at his lip, the emotion too much.

"I'm sorry, too. I've been feeling horribly embarrassed over that crass remark I made." She looked down and shook her head. "You know, about 'meeting in the middle...'"

"Of the bed? I thought it rather funny, once I'd recovered." There was a beautiful lilt to his voice that made her look up. "You have a gift for euphemism," he assured her with a wicked look in his eye.

"That comes from being a vicar's daughter," she said with a shrug. "And... It wasn't true what I said after that, either."

"What's that?"

"Oh, I was upset with you. And I told you, you had killed a particular desire."

"Not true then?"

"Not true," she said, stepping close enough to reach for him.

"So, you are not opposed to... em, 'sharing space'?" he asked, trying his hand at creative euphemisms.

He had whispered the words against her neck, and the feel of his breath and the things he had said were working on her. She had no doubt he had meant it all to. She wanted to tell him how good it felt every time he was pressed against her like this.

He'd left his coat unbuttoned and she tugged at it, insinuating herself further inside it.

"Sam..."

She wished she could tell him how, even now, she wanted him closer. She couldn't imagine admitting how good it felt; his chest against hers made her sort of... tingle inside. His hips... She hooked her fingers at his waist and plied him forward. _God, his hips._ She needed him there. Right there. Where things ached to be touched.

"Sam..." he said again. And this time it most definitely was a warning. "I don't want to be pedantic, but there are people inside. Two of them are your parents. And I am completely unprepared for the amount of embarrassment we are headed for."

"Then finish this," she told him.

He moaned. It wasn't just euphemism she had a talent for. Apparently, there was inadvertent double entendre, too.

"Finish this... apology?" he asked.

"Um hmm," she mumbled at his neck.

"I absolutely want you with me. Always. No matter what comes. I don't care where you hang the wet towels or which side of anything you take," he said softly as he rocked her. "I don't see how this arrangement is fair to you, but if you are feeling brave enough to take me on..."

"Definitely. You are barely any work at all now that I've gotten used to the vagaries of the job."

"R-r-right," he trilled as he moved to nip at her earlobe. He was rewarded by her gasp as sensation ran through her. "And if Mr. Chaplin can handle an 18 year old debutant," Foyle continued. "I can quite easily handle you." _And I can deal in suggestive talk just as well as you, you'll find, _he assured her in his mind.

"Oh, certainly," she said. "I'm positively ancient in comparison."

"Oh, decrepit," he told her. And the words turned to something like a growl, as he registered her tongue shyly tasting at his throat.

A voice called out to them from the house. She wasn't surprised they were being interrupted, only surprised that it was her father.

"Come in, Sam. Or you'll miss all the excitement," the Reverend Stewart said.

Sam snorted her laugh into Foyle's shoulder, and he tried in vain to shush her.

"It's almost the New Year," her father called out.

"I didn't mean for a search party to get called," Sam said while trying to look contrite. She walked for the door then.

"With you, Sam, things you don't intend always seem to happen," Reverend Stewart supplied.

/


	9. Chapter 9

**_A/N: This is a short chapter and very much overdue. I was having a great time getting this story written. It had gone a bit untamed, but I still had hopes I could train it toward a reasonable end._**

**_We were completely derailed here when my middle child was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes just recently. Managing it is completely exhausting and I have not slept through the night in weeks. But I want to feel I still have some sort of life outside of all that. So, I managed this with dancesabove's editorial help. It is short. But we will get Sam and Foyle to a ripping good (and yummy) end._**

**_Thanks so much for reading and standing by me._**

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><p>Christopher and Sam had seen off the guests, and they now lingered outside in the dark and in the cold.<p>

"I have to confess that I was underhanded with you," she told him, turning her head to give him that sly half glance of hers.

"You were?" He drew her closer. Wrapped his arms around her more boldly as if to tell her nothing she could say would put him off.

"Well, maybe not underhanded. But my mother says you are certainly intelligent enough to have known what was going on."

"I will have to thank her for that vote of confidence, but what was it you did?" came his lilt.

"I had always arrived at your house at 8 a.m. Sharp," Sam explained.

"Yes."

"And then I started coming a bit early. Do you know why?"

"I did notice, and I hope I know why you did it," he said as he squeezed her. "But I want you to tell me."

"I wanted to have those extra few minutes with you. I was desperate for them. And as we got comfortable together, well, you would always answer the door in your shirt sleeves." She smiled wickedly at the memory. "I always thought you incredibly handsome like that. And you'd have extra tea for me. And sometimes we would sit down together at the table. Sometimes, I would… pretend..." she trailed off, embarrassed.

"Go on, Sam," he coaxed, his lips at her ear.

"I'd pretend it was our breakfast together. You know, as if that were normal."

"As if we were married?" he guessed.

Her cheeks were flushed, and she simply nodded.

She had managed to make it sound almost innocent, like a description of playing house. But he had kissed this woman, been kissed by her, and he knew there was most likely more to it. He kissed her gently now and offered up his own confession. "I've had my thoughts, too. And I oughtn't tell you. It can't improve your view of me."

"Please?" Her fingers tightened at his sides, imploring him as well.

He smiled to himself, and then sighed as if giving up a losing battle. "I wondered what would have happened if we were out driving... far outside of town and the car ran short of petrol..."

"I would never let that happen."

"Of course not," he said with a shamed smile. "Or the Wolseley might break down—through no fault of yours," he stressed. "And it would be raining. And late. And chilly."

"Mmmm," Sam told him, dreamily, as if Christopher had described the most lovely seaside holiday.

"I decided we would have wrapped ourselves in the blankets from the boot and curled up together in the back seat. You would let me kiss you. Here," he said, running a finger across her lips. "And here," he told her, trailing a finger into the open neck of her blouse. "I would dream about how you might let me touch you."

She only hummed in response as if considering it all... and liking it all.

"Would it be fitting to announce our engagement for the New Year?" he asked then.

"Perhaps you could start with it being fitting that you truly, and quite properly, asked?"

He was caught. She was right. He had made a right hash of this whole process.

"Will you marry me, Sam? I can't be happy without you. And I do want to be happy," he told her intently, his eyes on hers.

She agreed with a shy nod and a brilliant smile. And they discussed no details immediately. Her head was buried at his shoulder now. In short sentences, without even looking at one another, they let their other concerns float back and forth, gently.

"If you want to keep working," he said calmly, "I understand. I know you don't like feeling that you aren't doing your bit."

"But not as your driver," she surmised.

"I don't see how that would work. Not for any length of time," he said, quite carefully.

"You'll ask for a replacement after we are married?"

"Oh, nooo. Why should I do anyone's job for them?" he asked her a bit impishly. "I rather fancy waiting until either someone at the MTC or the Commissioner's Office figures out that I've been inconvenient enough to marry my driver."

She laughed. "Oh, I do love you. That could be fun."

He waited a minute then before he cast out the next topic. "What about children?" he asked at a whisper.

"I'd like that."

He squeezed her hand to let her know how heartily he agreed. She grinned as if over some secret, and nudged him shyly with her shoulder.

There was one thing more to say, and he needed her to know how sincere he was.

"And... Sam," he began, terribly uneasily. His tone stilled her. "I don't think we should live at the house on Steep Lane. I know that might feel... Well, I'd like it if we set up a place for _us._"

"I'll feel sorry for the people who take over your place," she told him with a shy smirk.

"Why?"

"From what you've said, Andrew's likely to just blunder in there at any time of the day or night."

"Too right. Now, Sam..."

"Hmmm."

"Has it escaped your notice that, well... it's unreasonably cold out here?"

"No. I'm fairly frozen. Right. Inside then?" she said with a laugh.

"Please."

Once in the hall, he reached for her coat, but she shivered and pulled it closer. "It makes no sense, but I am colder now than I was."

"It's the change in temperature. Makes you shiver, I think," he said as he put his arms around her and stroked her back.

She was a little surprised that he would hold her like this in the entranceway. Anyone might round the corner and see them, but she was not about to break the spell.

They heard footsteps on the second floor then, and Sam stiffened. She lifted her head from his chest and pushed back a little. "My mother will be coming down..."

"Shhh. I know."

_And you don't care? _she thought.

He guessed what she was thinking. And he realized suddenly that he _didn't_ care if he was caught with his arms around her. "I'm just trying to get you warm again, and we are all family, or will be soon enough."

"Yes." She happily relaxed against his coat and let up just one more shiver.

Foyle closed his eyes, so he could pretend not to see a thing should Mrs. Stewart come down. He could be what Sam needed. Now and in the future. He knew he could.

_Still..._

"Better?" Christopher asked as he heard Sam's mother on the stairs.

"Oh, yes. Much," Sam replied.

He stepped back and helped Sam with her coat, but his fingers were proving a bit dodgy. It was likely the cold, he wanted to tell himself. But he knew it was at least half emotion.

The click of heels was upon them then. "Samantha?" Mrs. Stewart called in warning while still safely out of sight. When Emily appeared, she smiled at the pair. "Do come say goodnight before you go up. Your father and I are in the study."

She was on her way just as quickly.

/

Foyle cleared his throat nervously as he and Sam walked into the study. "Mrs. Stewart. Reverend Stewart. Samantha has agreed to marry me. And... we'd like your blessing."

(tbc)

/


	10. Chapter 10

_A note of love from MyMadness: Another chapter, from what's left of my brain. We are up nights here. Dealing with a new sense of normal. And sometimes Sam and Foyle sneak up on me and whisper to me in my waking dreams that things really could stand to move along. _

_And I watch what dancesabove put up on YouTube of our pair... And my daughter manages a few bars just, **just so** and straight out of New Orleans on her trumpet - and I sling this down._

_I thank dancesabove for her eye - for the apt edits. But I claim all the errors, as I went back over what she had fixed and poked it with a big stick. I thank Selmak for her ears._

_Thank you all for reading and for all the lovely reviews. You make my sleepy heart sing._

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><p>Foyle cleared his throat nervously as they walked into the study. "Mrs. Stewart. Reverend Stewart. Sam has agreed to marry me. And... we'd like your blessing."<p>

Her father sat blinking behind his glasses, as if this had not been a very likely outcome of this weekend.

"Oh, lovely. Congratulations," Mrs. Stewart said, sounding genuinely pleased. Christopher was not surprised by her words. He had realized that Sam's mother had never been against the match, she had just wanted them to be very, very sure. Being a nervous suitor, however, he was still relieved to see Sam's mother moving toward them, all smiles.

Emily Stewart kissed them both on the cheek, and words now seemed more than the woman could manage.

"And when do you hope to be married?" Reverend Stewart asked, once he had recovered enough to kiss his daughter.

"As soon as possible," Sam said without hesitation.

_Oh, deftly managed, dear,_ Christopher said silently to Sam. He closed his eyes and felt his face vaguely redden. _Try not to make it sound as if we are likely to ravish each other in the next few minutes?_

"Would you like this betrothal to be blessed, Samantha? Christopher?" the vicar asked with a gentle look.

_He means __**formally**__ blessed, _Foyle thought, feeling flatfooted. He should have known that, if he was marrying the daughter of a vicar, asking for a blessing was going to be more involved than toasts and well wishes.

Samantha hooked her fingers into the lapel of Christopher's coat and pulled him toward her so she could whisper to him. Mrs. Stewart took a few steps off to the side to give them some semblance of privacy, while Reverend Stewart moved to scan his wall of books.

"Do you mind if he reads from one of the old services?" Sam said. "There's one for betrothals. It used to be a whole ceremony... and..."

Foyle's head nearly at her shoulder now, he whispered, "No. I don't mind. If... erm, it's what you want?"

"Mmm hmm," she agreed into his suit coat.

The Reverend Stewart ran his finger over the most ancient books in his collection before he found the one he needed.

"This part of the service all sounds so lovely in Greek," the reverend said. "But shall we do this in English?" This was, apparently, Iain Stewart's attempt at humor. And Foyle was in such a good mood, he found himself enjoying the joke.

The good vicar's daughter that she was, Sam arranged herself appropriately. Head bent as if in prayer, she stood before her father and she reached for Foyle's hand.

Foyle's breath was short with emotion as he fell in close beside her. And Sam sensed the bit of unease in him. She squeezed his hand and leaned just that inch toward him to brush at his arm with hers. He could not help but grin over Sam being Sam, despite the seriousness of the occasion.

Christopher sensed that the Reverend Stewart was about to begin, so he tried to school his smile and fight the urge he had to squeeze Sam's hand yet tighter.

Foyle needn't have worried. "Your joy does my heart good to see," the elder man whispered.

And then with a smile of his own, and a full and practiced voice, he began. "For the servants of God, Samantha and Christopher, who now pledge themselves to one another, and for their salvation; let us pray."

As the words came, Foyle found he had no problem holding onto every one, just as he so easily held Sam's hand.

_Had it been just a week since the Christmas service had left him so bereft?_

"That there may be children for the continuation of their heritage, granting unto them all their prayers unto salvation; let us pray to the Lord," the vicar continued.

"That He send down upon them love perfect, and give them His protection; that He keep them in oneness of mind, and in steadfastness of Faith; let us pray to the Lord.

"That He may bless them in harmony and perfect trust; let us pray to the Lord.

"O Lord our God, bless this Betrothal, uniting Your servants, keeping them in peace and accord.

"For to You are due all Glory, honor, and worship, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and to the ages of ages."

"Amen," Christopher and Samantha intoned together. Foyle felt himself rejoin the room as if from some place far off.

"Amen." He heard Mrs. Stewart echo. Her voice was brimming and bright, and, Foyle imagined, relieved.

"It is quite lovely in English as well," Christopher managed softly to his prospective father-in-law.

…

The couples bid each other goodnight. Mrs. Stewart's only warning to the newly betrothed pair was not to stay up too late; then she and her husband took to the stairs.

Sam and Christopher were alone again. And by some unspoken understanding they walked slowly, hands joined, to the front room and the light of the fire.

"Your mother's a marvel, you know that," Foyle announced wryly, as they stood by the mantel. "Incredibly perceptive."

"What did she do?"

"Had me come out here," he answered, simply.

"That?"

"Yes. Just that."

"Whatever you do," Sam said with a quirk to her expression, "don't tell her how completely brilliant and perceptive she is. It will only make her more difficult."

He hummed his agreement. And then feeling wicked, he leaned forward, took her by the waist, and hummed again, so he might tickle at her neck.

She pulled him tighter, indecently tighter, and felt the rush of delight the world had designed in her.

In another moment, though, as she let her mind return to sing its warning, it all turned overwhelming. A visceral shiver ran through her, and she let up half a cry.

As if with effort, she put her hands to his chest to enforce a slight distance. "I had not thought it possible," she told him.

"What's that?"

"'Goodnight' just got even more difficult," she said.

"But ever more necessary."

"You'll dance with me, though," she told him more than asked. It had not escaped his notice that she hadn't let go of him.

"Eventually," he said. "Eventually, we'll dance."

She turned away from him abruptly and switched the wireless back on. She looked back at him with a sort of self-satisfied smile when she heard that there was music still at this hour. It was a slow swing standard. Romantic. Overly sentimental. And definitely waltz-able.

He let her fold herself back into his arms as he gave her a warning look.

"One dance," he tried to chide.

"Absolutely. Just..." Suddenly she couldn't even think as his warm kiss hit that spot behind her ear. His hand at her back was barely moving, but demanding ever so much of her attention as they danced in their slow circle... It was his breathing, she found, that she focused on as they moved together. The sound of it was slow. Steady and vital. But the feel of it, radiating through him to her? That was deep and full of wanting.

_Oh, good God,_ she thought. _Message received. Roger. Wilco.__ Me too._

"I wondered," she began, "why you never danced with me."

"It isn't as if there were _**that**_ many opportunities," he tried to deflect at a whisper.

"Still..."

She wanted his honesty. He could hear that in her single, small, tremulous word. His hand left her shoulder and traced at her throat as he decided to tell her how it really was. "No, you're right. I didn't dare dance with you."

"Why, Christopher?" she asked as she leaned away to meet his eye.

"I knew that if I held you like this... touched you like _this_..." he said, as they slid closer together. "I knew I might not let go until morning." A single finger traced further down past the hollow of her throat then, and his meaning was completely and evocatively clear.

He couldn't place her look. It seemed something like mild shock at his touch and at the suggestive words.

"I don't mean that I'm going to sneak you into my room tonight, Sam. I'm not threatening anything untoward," he tried to assure her.

But she wasn't looking to have any fears soothed. She kissed him, full and then hard. She let go of the worry that she would embarrass herself with her meager experience at such things, and let her tongue demand his. She let her fingers revel in the curls at his neck.

"I wouldn't mind if you did," she told him even as a gasp escaped her. "I wouldn't mind if you meant something _very_ untoward."

Her words were not spoken as a tease, he knew. They were simply a resolute woman's very level assurance. And that made forgotten things grow tight inside him.

He cleared his throat. "For my sake, there are things it would be better if you only _thought_ rather than said out loud. For now."

There was a kiss to her forehead then, to mark his need for a change to their activities.

"Oh, this is impossible," she near-growled into his shirt as she registered her own frustration.

"Yes," he agreed, his feelings obvious in that one syllable. "Completely impossible. And I am going to lock you in your room now. You on one side of the door. Me on the other."

It wasn't helping that she recognized the want in him. She only groaned and tightened her fingers' hold in his shirt.

Any vague sort of sexual feelings her body had treated her to in the past had suddenly become extremely specific. And very intense.

She was making no move to end their embrace, and it was left to him. His sudden hands at her shoulders spun her and pointed her at the stairs. "Not another word. Please God, not another sound." She had no idea how each little noise of frustration was working through him, provoking him.

They walked up the stairs like that, his hands at her shoulders, he trying his best to pretend he was just an automaton delivering a package.

And he told himself that her parents would be listening at their bedroom door for their daughter's safe delivery to her room. That helped.

Finally, they stood at the doorway to her childhood room.

"I love you," he told her as he held her close, but kept her facing away from him. "You'll never know how much. Or for how long."

"I love you, too. I thank God, you know. For you."

"Me too. Goodnight," he whispered.

She half-turned and took an awkward kiss from him.

"Goodnight," she told him as she reached to touch his cheek.

And his firm hands allowed no betrayal as they moved her across the threshold.

"Until tomorrow," he told her.

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><p><em>AN: The "betrothal service" still exists and is still used in the Orthodox church. Not sure about any others. _

_I have (or perhaps I can blame the Rev Stewart) shortened and simplified it for use here. I mean no offense. There was one prayer I remember dear Fr. Jim nearly gushing about during our wedding planning. "This sounds so lovely in Greek!" And so we let him do it that way. I HAD to include the very Fr. Jim-like quote here._


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's note:_

_Thank you all for the sweet reviews and for taking the time to stick with me and this story. I love hearing from folks and knowing you are still out there._

_Our computer died. It went away. It came back. That was a very rough week where I tried hard not to cry or complain to my husband that I needed to work on my stories. _

_I thank (yet again) dancesabove for her edits and comments. Any remaining errors are mine. _

_If you think this sweet, witty, or sexy, well... yea! That's what I was going for._

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><p>"Hmmm. How far will we walk today?" Christopher wanted to know. And <em>this time,<em> he was the one to put his shoulder to hers to push at her in their teasing way.

"I'll show you out to the shed and back. By the creek." She looked down at her feet then, obviously saddened by some thought. "I wish you weren't going back tomorrow."

"Well..." he began in his drawn-out manner. "I'm not. I've decided to change my ticket," he continued slyly, as if this were an ordinary change in plans. "I'll go back first thing Monday morning. With you."

"Oh, goodness!" she said with a near-jump to her step and a ridiculous smile.

He laughed at how easy it was to make her happy. And he marveled at how wonderful it felt to know he was the one who could do that.

They were quiet then as they walked a thinly worn path at the back of the property.

_They were alone._ He suspected that was the thought that occupied her sudden silence. Because that is what he was currently dwelling on as he looked at her. As he smiled to himself, he scanned in every direction and wondered just how few people there might be in the immediate square mile.

… … …

That morning, her parents had had calls to make on a half-dozen parishioners, that being something of a New Year's Day tradition. Originally, the idea had been that Sam would go with them. But with Christopher there at the vicarage, the entire prospect had become awkward.

"She'll be fine. _They'll_ be fine," Mrs. Stewart had encouraged her husband. The reverend had abruptly halted by the front door as he quite obviously considered what was about to happen – they would be leaving Sam with Mr. Foyle for a good four hours. Quite unsupervised.

Emily Stewart had put a hand to her husband's arm then, as if to help him for the door. "Same rules we always gave her when we had to leave her here on her own," the woman had said with a smile. And with a look from her husband to her daughter, she had parroted the well-used words Sam had heard since she was quite young. "Stay away from the stove. Don't answer the door. And no playing in your father's study. Just. Behave."

Foyle had found himself staring at his shoes and subtly easing away from his fiancée's side, as if any increased distance between himself and Sam would somehow soothe her father's evident worries.

… … ...

Her father had a reason to worry, Foyle knew. Last night as he had danced with Sam, as they had touched each other, he had felt as he hadn't in many, many years. Young. Carnal. Bristling and alive with the want of a woman he loved.

Christopher pulled in a deep breath of the rural air as he walked beside Sam and reminded himself of Mrs. Stewarts' jesting words. _"Just behave."_

It was then that Sam announced their arrival at their destination. The old shed. Sizable though it was, it seemed something like a disused potter's building. There was a clouded window on either side of the wooden door. The paint was peeling from the outer walls, he noted, and there were strewn clay pots in the dirt near the front.

Foyle was surprised when Sam pushed at the shed's door. She led him through by the hand as if afraid he would bolt. And something tickling deep inside him told him he probably should.

This was not what Mrs. Stewart had in mind when she had issued her warning that Sam behave — of that Christopher was quite sure.

Once they were inside the cheeky young woman turned to close them in. He watched her, his eyebrows working even further back with realization. God help him, there was a lock on the handle, and she was turning it.

_What was it about this family and sheds?_ He had to wonder, thinking of how Emily and Iain had found themselves locked in together years ago.

"Sam? What are we doing?" he questioned her, as her hands now smoothed across his chest. Still, despite his misgivings, he found he had not stopped returning her touches.

"I need to be alone with you. Really alone," she explained.

She pressed against him, pushed at his coat.

"We could have been alone at the house," he pointed out, almost ridiculously.

Sam shook her head, her mood different now. "Not like this," she told him, sounding serious and almost pained.

"Tell me," he said, finally.

"I need you to kiss me. Touch me. Please?" She kissed him then with a feral sort of urgency that had him nearly reeling. He gently forced some separation, but she only used that space as a chance to throw off her coat. Quite immediately, she was back in his arms.

"But we'll wait... You can't want to. I mean not _here_, Sam," he almost scolded. _Kissing, yes,_ he was thinking. And his hands on her skin at last. An unhelpful image of how tantalizing it would feel to stroke across her bare stomach took over his mind before he could banished it.

_Because she couldn't want her first time to be here... _ he told himself firmly.

There was a fairly large, weathered boat on the floor that Sam was eying. That did give Christopher pause. It looked like Sam spent time out here in the boat, reading, he imagined, because the thing was made up almost like a nest with blankets in it.

She didn't make him be the one to bring up the risk of pregnancy. That was his Sam. She tugged on him to draw his attention away from the rowboat. "I'm so close to starting... you know," she told him. "You needn't worry."

"What?" he said with a mixture of noncomprehension and disbelief.

"There is... a euphemism involved. 'Starting my gift', my mother would say." She ended the sentence like a question, begging him to understand.

"Yes. Um. Euphemism. Right." He claimed a deep breath then. Facing down armed men had raised less panic in the detective. "Sam!" he said, as he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "Given that your father just yesterday prayed that we be blessed with children, I think this is not at all a good idea. No matter how 'close' you think you are." Christopher's voice was becoming uncharacteristically high.

"You don't understand," she countered quickly. "I've been so scared these last few months – because of the war and the work we do. And it makes no sense now that things are set between us, but my worrying has only got worse."

He shook his head. She was right. He didn't understand what she was saying, because she had always done such a remarkable job of hiding any fear or weakness. Because he hadn't seen any of this.

"But you haven't always been worried. You never seemed..."

"It started when I fell in love with you."

He kissed her forehead in answer.

He rocked her in his arms and thought about it all. But he remained perplexed as to how any _fear_ was tied together with what she seemed to want. "What is happening here, Sam? You have to explain it, I'm afraid."

"I've been waiting for our luck to run out," she admitted softly. "For things to go wrong. _Seriously_ wrong."

"They won't, Sam. Not now. I love you," he stressed. "We'll get married. I'm sure about this. Very sure."

"I don't meant wrong _between_ us. I get scared that something will happen to you. Or to me. Before we can get married and really be together." Her voice was tight. "Please, don't tell me it isn't reasonable or rational. I know that."

"I _wouldn't_ tell you that, because I know it's hard not to worry. But we will be married soon."

"When?" she asked, her voice firm and desperate.

"I don't know exactly. We can ask to have waiting periods waved, a special license, that sort of thing. It won't be too long."

"I have lived through the past few years with you," she said, pulling at his biceps, "feeling like everything was out of our control. Bombings and shootings, car accidents..."

"Oh, Sam," he tried to soothe.

"Anthrax," she finished.

"I know," he said with an ache.

"And I managed."

"You managed quite well," he supplied.

She shook her head.

"Do you know how insane it has been? Loving you and wanting something. But worrying. And never wanting to let you know how worried I was? And the whole time, nothing has been predictable. We had to live every day knowing anything could happen. So, I want control over _something_. Now." She paused to touch his cheek. She looked at him intently before needing to look away. "I - I want to make love to you, now. Not later. I want to stop being afraid that something horrible can keep us from being together. Does that make any sense?" she asked, almost desperately.

"Yes. Yes," he whispered, pulling her closer. "But you don't want to be married first? You've waited this long."

"We've been blessed, betrothed in the eyes of God. We have promised ourselves to one another. And only each other. All that remains is a few lines." Her voice rang with determination.

"Your theology is dubious," he said with a loving smile.

"In the Name of God, I, Samantha..."

With a single, gentle finger, he stilled her words.

"Do you know it all by heart?" he asked with caution, one questioning eye brow higher than the other.

She nodded. "I didn't actually want to be a nun when I was growing up," she confessed, as if ashamed of her previous stories about just that. "Actually, for the longest time, I thought I would be a vicar. I didn't really believe that they wouldn't let me do it just because I was a girl..." She was on a roll now and Christopher grinned at the way she started talking faster. "I married all my dolls off to my bears. Well, and one to an elephant. I was asked to stop when I tried to marry two of the neighbor's cats."

"My dear Sam." It wasn't just the story that affected him. It was seeing how she wanted this so badly — to be able to control this moment. She wanted to see them married, safe and sound. Or as married as today would make them. "If you weren't meant to be marrying people then," Foyle told her quietly, "I should think it's not proper now."

"We give ourselves," she stressed. "And the vicar 'pronounces' it. Pronounces what only we and God can do. It is all there, written in the books. We face each other as man and woman. But after the vows, we face the vicar as husband and wife."

She was deadly serious, a stunned Christopher realized.

"This is what you want?" he whispered hoarsely.

"This is what I _need_. I love you. And I need to be married to you, body and soul, before I come apart. I can't worry anymore."

He looked to the ceiling as he began to consider that he was either losing his mind or finally seeing truth. "And there will still be the service and your father there in front of us?"

"Of course! I'm not so silly as to think the government is going to sanction the garden shed, solemnized-by-God-because-the-bride-was-emotionally-distraught bit."

"Help me with it, Sam?" he said as he took up her hands.

She squeezed back, and in a full, measured voice she told him, "In the Name of God, I, Samantha, take you, Christopher, to be my husband."

"In the Name of God, I, Christopher, take you, Samantha, to be my wife." He sighed as sensation gripped him, and he fought the urge to interrupt her with his thoughts. _ I can feel it. How real it is. How right._

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse."

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse," he told her.

"For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death."

He rested his forehead against hers as he felt the emotion flood him. "For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death."

"This is my solemn vow," she pledged.

"Oh, my love," he breathed, "This is my solemn vow."

And the more she kissed him suddenly, the more all of this madness made complete sense, even to a stuffy, middle-aged policeman. She stopped then. To smile at him. To pet at him.

But then, while he stood there, sweetly dazed by how amazing he felt, he realized he was watching her — with a sort of bodiless distance — as she hung her dress on a hook. He was yielding his suit coat now and letting her drape it over the seat of the old rowboat.

He felt his eyes widen hopelessly. _Dear God, this is happening._

She stepped in to the dinghy first, into the nest of blankets, and she held out her hand to him. When he was finally standing with her in the tangle of things at their feet, the boat rocked to the side. She laughed. He found it not nearly as funny, but he smiled still and pulled her hard against him.

"Tell me you love me," she reminded him.

"I do. I love you. I had thought it obvious. Otherwise how could I have found myself here? Married. In a shed. In a boat..."

"Now? Talk less?" she requested as she picked at the buttons on his shirt.

He swallowed hard.

(tbc)


	12. Chapter 12

**_A/N:_**

**_dancesabove has been most patient and most helpful. I sweat these types of chapters. I want them right. I want them original. I want you swooning, but feeling things ring true._**

**_I want a lot. Sigh._**

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><p>His shoes were off. His coat behind him. Sam had already managed his cuffs, he realized. And he had abandoned the tie, apparently. Somewhere. He was quickly going fuzzy on the details as he considered the feel of her skin and the intensity of her kisses.<p>

That they were standing rather precariously in a grounded boat, he was quite aware. Whatever their plans, prudence demanded they get off their feet.

"We should lie down," he whispered, as his hands continued to enjoy the feel of the curves beneath her silk slip.

"Well, I figured _that_," she teased.

He laughed. Let his fingers slide across her back before he answered her. "I _meant_... before we fall and end up concussed."

She had not known what to expect from sex. It wasn't just "Let's..." and then the silent act, she saw. It was this. Their quiet words that tickled at the other's skin. The happiness in his laugh. That joy. The slow touches that somehow both eased and fueled her wanting.

There was still the awkwardness that she knew would be there in any first time. They had said they would lie down, they had eased apart a bit, until they were just holding hands. And still they were standing there.

"Not that we need to take this any further, but we will be a lot safer lying down," he told her.

"I vote 'further'," she whispered with her eyes on his chest.

His hands moved to his braces, but then froze there. And she knew he was concerned. He did not want to seem to be pushing her to do this... to consummate things here. So, she pulled at the cotton at his sides, freeing his shirt from his waistband with a half-dozen little tugs. He shrugged out of the braces finally, and then their hands met at his zip.

"Further?" he pretended to question, although she had made herself decidedly clear. His one eyebrow lingered high, as if he honestly expected an answer.

She wished she knew how to rid him of his trousers in a more elegant fashion. Perhaps, she thought with a little laugh, she needed to allow that lovemaking was likely to occasionally contain elements of the ridiculous.

The boat shifted again as he used one quick hand to shed his trousers. The other hand clung to her waist for support.

"Do you... well, do you want some help?" she asked, too eagerly.

"Steady on, Sam," he admonished, as he worked to save his pride and straighten up again. She held back any reply until she saw he was more amused by her offer than upset.

"Yes, Mr. Foyle," she smiled into his neck.

"I will thank you not to laugh. Not at a time like this. Not until we've been married a good 15 years," he teased back. He was tempted to pinch her, but that would only ensure a catastrophe.

Once they were finally lying together, he arranged them as best he could. A tug on a corner of the blanket had them half-covered. A quick hand snagged his coat to provide a pillow they could share as they lay on their sides.

"You look worried," she told him, cautiously.

"Well. I have every reason to be. I mean, in a boat? I've never. Never, Sam."

And this thrilled her – he saw in her grin. It pleased and excited her that this was a sort of first time for him. That there was still newness for them.

"I still want to..." she trailed off.

He didn't answer her. He didn't dare. But he pushed a single strap of her slip to trace her collarbone. She'd worn no brassiere today, he noted. A clue he would have seen before they'd got to the shed, if not for that bulky cardigan.

And now he could not help but toy with a nipple. A foolish indulgence, he warned himself, if he was thinking she might let them end proceedings here.

Her warm fingers teased just inside the waistband of his shorts then. She ran her hand along to his hipbone and stopped there, as if glad to have found a suitable resting place. He watched her and waited, punctuating the time with small kisses.

There would be some further sign, despite her brave words; something irrefutable, if he knew his Sam.

"I still want to," she said, again. And as she most deliberately snugged his hips in against hers, she told him a little shyly, "You want to, too."

Reflex and desire took him for a moment then. With a quick motion he placed her leg at his waist. His hips moved against hers, desperate to ease the ache he felt. It had all happened before he knew what he had done. He reproached himself for a flash, before Sam's soft, slow words reached him: "That feels so good, Christopher."

But she stopped them. Enforced a small distance that left Foyle only momentarily confused.

Her hand was still inside his waistband, and she eased the shorts down gently to free him. When he pressed to her now, it was all the sensation he could handle: the feeling of moving against her damp silk, the sound of her moans.

She worked off her knickers, and he sensed his stomach tighten almost painfully at the glimpse of her there.

He felt nearly paralyzed as her hand pushed at his shoulder. Suddenly Sam was hovering over him, in just her slip. And she was warm and wet against his thighs.

It had been years since Christopher Foyle had made love to a woman. God knows when in his past he had been this reckless. But he wasn't thinking about the past at all. He was right here, in this moment, fingers ghosting over her skin. His eyes delighting in the rise of goose bumps that he could cause.

His dear Sam could not passively receive his attentions any longer. All at once, her hands were pushing at his open shirt and shaking with emotion.

"For so long," she said. "I've wanted this. To be with you." She ran her hands over his bare chest.

"Come here. Please," he told her after a moment. And she leaned to him. He kissed at her jaw and neck, his mouth open and sensual on her skin.

Would she know that he suddenly had been unable to stand her scrutiny of his middle-aged form? he wondered.

She did, he marveled. She knew. Her hand moved to his face, traced his lips and jaw. There was a light of understanding in her eyes. And she did more to reassure him then.

"You thought I was always daydreaming. Or daft. I'm sure," she said.

"What do you mean?" he whispered.

"I wouldn't always catch what you were saying to me... because I would be looking at your mouth. Thinking about how unlikely it was that you would ever kiss me."

She said this, but then did not take a kiss. She stayed just out of reach so he had to strain up to demand her lips.

She preferred this, being on top of him, she thought. His lips on her and his hands could quite quickly overwhelm her senses. And like this, she could ease away when it was all too much.

Christopher seemed to understand as he released her again for a moment.

She caught her breath before she lowered herself against him once more.

Close to his ear then, her eyes shut, she whispered her question. "Is it all right? If we are like this?" The confidence was gone from her voice, and he could tell that she needed practical advice on the likelihood that sex, like this, was feasible for them. Her worry about being on top of him seemed more real to her than any worry about them lying together in a boat. "Me here, I mean."

"Yes. If you are where you want to be?"

She nodded against his neck.

"If it hurts," he said between kisses, "you'll stop. Hmm?"

"Uh-huh."

"All right?" he felt compelled to ask, as he touched her intimately. Their hands met between them, and they each explored and caressed.

He guided her hand to ease across him firmly, but not too firmly. He let up a noise in appreciation at her efforts that made her smile proudly.

Christopher was thankful then when she returned the favor and helped him touch her. She removed any doubt about where exactly she wanted him or how lightly he should stroke her.

_But could he satisfy her?_ Sam answered his concern with the way her face changed in that precise moment. Her eyes closed, and her brows knit together with the tension he was creating in her.

She announced her intent, her immediate need, in the way she moaned then and rose up.

He worked to have her more comfortable, to take her weight at one hip. To ease her leg just so. His mind was as full of these practicalities as it was full of desire.

As much as he wanted her, he knew that her first time – here and astride and in a row boat (_Dear God, _he silently intoned) – might be so uncomfortable that he would stand no chance of sating her.

_Hell,_ his mind supplied. _Given the size of this boat, things__ just might not be possible at all. _

Together they had him. There. Ready. He rocked up gently over and over, so minutely, but enough to make them both moan.

"Sam?" He wasn't sure what he was asking, any more. It didn't matter; her expression was not one of any apprehension. Not now.

He put his hand to her face, and she moved it to her mouth. And she bit gently at the heel of his hand while she took him in. Slowly. But so very completely.

She kissed his hand then to reassure him that she was fine. The smile he felt pressed there lightened him.

_Oh, God. Beautiful. _The words poured through him as he watched and felt her begin to move over him. He'd be spent in a moment.

"Tell me," he begged her, as she faltered. But he needed no answer: she needed him to move inside her, he knew.

"Oh my. Just... just there," she murmured in response to the way he brushed at her now.

As she dared to move again as well, there was his reward, hearing the pleasure in the stutter of her cries.

"Yes, Sam," he encouraged, hoarsely. "Oh, yes, Sam. Do. Yes, do."

He was younger in that moment as he watched her shatter. Buoyant and strong. Proud. Because he was hers. Her husband. Her lover. Her friend. He was proud to have this woman love him this fiercely.

He was amazed at how she had healed the hurt in him. And he let go every string, every restraint, that had kept him back.

Even as he caught her now to have her at his chest, he felt the force in him leave like thunder.

Her recovering breaths came in warm, rhythmic pulses at his neck. And it was good, so easily right. He cradled her in his arms and felt brilliantly in love. And ever so much relief. He could feel the limits of his mind as he closed his eyes, and there was nothing but this. Nothing else. Just a lightness where no pain could find purchase.

'I love you' was whispered back and forth, so fervently. But with no hint of the ache that had colored their emotions before.

As he petted at her hair, he was about to ask how she felt, physically. He was prepared to let her know that any sting shouldn't be a problem when they made love again.

But she let up such a satisfied purr just then, that he decided the planned conversation might be unnecessary. "Do I have to move?" she wondered at last.

It was all perfectly warm. So complete. He laid a hand low on her back to keep her there. To preserve what remained of their connection.

"No. Not ever."

"I love you," she said again. She immediately felt silly that she was only repeating the same thing over and over. "Sorry… I don't know what else to say."

"S'alright," he managed, with a faint chuckle.

...

tbc


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: More Sam and Foyle! More fun! Thank you for continuing to read and especially for taking the time to review. I'm always glad to hear someone has liked the contortions I've come up with for our heroes. _

_I remain indebted to the inspired editing of dancesabove_

/ / / / / / / /

While Sam freshened up across the hall, Foyle checked his suit coat for evidence that they had been down to the old shed. It would be suspicious if he was dressed differently when the Stewarts returned, but far worse if they walked in to find him with paint or saw dust on his clothing.

He looked up from his inspection and caught the gaze of the graying man in the mirror. And then he remembered. And smiled. It all played back as he looked back down to needlessly brush at his shirtfront.

...

_There were some groans and complaints about having to move, but after they'd rested in the boat, Sam let him up so that they could dress. She began to put her clothes back on, but then she faltered. She wanted him again. It was plain in the way she was watching him, the way she moved close to him. Without words, she asked him what was possible. Her hips nudged at his as they stood by a workbench. Her lips worked inside the still-open neck of his shirt and he quickly gave up buttoning the thing._

"_Quite irresistible," she assured him as she wound her arms around his shoulders._

"_Decidedly incorrigible," he pretended to discourage her. Still, he held her in his arms and kissed her. And feeling a great deal younger, he tightened his grasp long enough to lift her so that she was sitting on the table. _

"_Oh, heavens! Could we? I've read somewhere this sort of thing happens," she said, sounding more pleased than alarmed._

"_This 'sort of thing' is not happening. Not today," he amended, although his body was surprising him with the willingness he felt. And that 'willingness' wanted to be firm against her. He stepped between her knees, pushing her dress higher as he leaned into her. _

"_Well, it seems to be happening. It certainly is to me. That... craving...Mmm," she said as she pulled him tighter still. "That craving for you is happening, I mean. And you..." she looked down to emphasize what she knew she felt pressed to her._

_His fingers interceded then, rendering her incapable of further thought. The wet of her knickers registered directly with his male ego. _

"_Please?" she whispered desperately._

"_Just this. Or you'll be sore," he told her. __He bent his head to kiss along her collarbone._

_Just this. That was what he had said, but the feel of her? The sound of that voice? He hummed at her breast, somehow wanting her more by the minute._

_She reached between them to fumble with his trouser fastenings... and he let her. "Just let me touch you," she bargained._

"_Just that."_

...

Neither of them had been convinced to leave it at '_just that_,' it turned out. _Really_, he chastised his reflection, _it would not do to let Sam think he did not know his own mind, or that he was so easily turned. _

But no sense of reproach could take hold. Not today. Not when he could so clearly _feel_ as much as remember how wonderfully their interlude had gone.

_Interludes_, some devilish part of himself corrected. Really, it warranted the use of a plural.

_Forget the coat, Foyle,_ he berated himself. _It's that awful smirk that is going to give you away. _

He heard the bathroom door open. Sam whispered to him from the hallway then like an equally guilty, but giddy soul.

He followed her down the stairs and into the sitting room. With more smiles than conversation, she kicked off her shoes and curled up on the sofa.

She was exhausted, he saw. And he encouraged her to close her eyes.

He put himself in the armchair near her head and pulled the book of verse from the table next to him. His mind was only on her and the future, but he knew he should at least have a prop at hand. Something to keep him grounded while she slept.

His eyes travelled from poem to poem, but he still reached out frequently to touch her hair or arm.

He felt foolish that he couldn't keep his hand from her. He traced a finger across her cheek, and watched while a slow smile crept across her face. Her eyes slowly fluttered open.

"I'm sorry. I should let you nap," he said, guiltily.

"I won't be able to sleep unless I know that you are there," she whispered.

_Please, I need to feel_ _that you are close_, she was telling him. And he understood. Completely.

And if he had been too long in between these attentions, she let her hand rest on his chair so her fingers grazed his thigh.

It felt so intimate, so private. Even necessary. It was sensual and a kind of knowing. These were the smallest touches, but much more telling than even kisses would have been if observed, Foyle knew. He worried that Sam's parents would be quite immediately wise to what had happened in their absence. Removing any trace of what they had been up to from his jacket was easy. Changing the way they unconsciously acted now would not be as easily managed.

"Thank you. For marrying me," Sam told him in a sleepy voice.

"Oh. Well. My pleasure," he said with feigned distraction and formality. "I would do it all again."

"And you will. You'll have no choice!"

"Yes. I know. And I am happy about that, believe me." He smiled then, in that upside down sort of way.

She extended her hand and found his. They sat quietly then like that for a long measure of time.

"Does it all feel so very, very different now?" she asked quietly. "Or is that just me?"

She might need his reassurance, Foyle thought. He needed to remember that she would have feelings associated with losing her virginity, with that physical change. It wasn't just that they had made love, or the emotion of exchanging vows. It had been her first time, and although he had been a concerned lover (he hoped) and had asked after her physically later, she might be feeling changed. Worse, she might be thinking that only _she_ was registering any change.

"Is it just me?" she asked, again.

"It's not just you," he promised her. He stood then and walked to the window. Brushing the curtain aside for a moment, he made sure the car was not in the drive or anywhere in sight. And then he gave into the impulse that had gripped him. When he returned to Sam's side, he knelt by the sofa and leaned over her to kiss her softly.

"It's definitely not just you," he whispered. And if his words did not make that perfectly clear, his unaccustomed actions surely did. "The way I feel... It should be impossible to be more in love with you. But that's what's happened," he said as he toyed with her curls.

"Somehow, it's all more complete feeling," she told him. "We seem settled. But at the same time, I feel even more unsettled inside. Does that make any sense? It's as if people will look at me and just know I'm not a virgin any more."

Christopher shifted so that he could sit on the floor. His one elbow hooked around the knee he pulled up, and he relaxed against the couch. He wanted their heads close and at the same height so he could whisper to her.

"Do you regret any of it, then?" came his soft question.

"No! But it is going to be strange to consider ourselves married when no one else does. Strange that we can't just move on to married life immediately and spend our nights together. I'm not embarrassed that I... well, ravished you in the shed. I'm just feeling very, very transparent."

"All people will know is that we're hopelessly in love with each other. But we should try to behave ourselves."

In their own little world then, the couple heard no one approach.

"The chairs do not suit, Christopher?" Emily Stewart wanted to know.

…

There was no explaining the way things appeared. And luckily, Mrs. Stewart did not want an explanation. She merely wanted some semblance of normal behavior before her husband walked in. She hissed words to that effect and the new couple responded sheepishly.

Sam was sure her mother was about to revert to her Sunday school teacher personae and issue her directives with sharp claps of her hands, but that was avoided.

"Better. Thank you," the elder woman assessed as she went to guide her husband to the kitchen.

The chastened couple sat side by side now. Hands in laps. Ridiculously prim. Not that they were caught doing anything untoward, Foyle tried to remind himself. Still, his face was burning. He sat with his eyes closed waiting for the embarrassment to fade. Sam's elbow pushed at him just lightly.

"Did I mention feeling _completely_ transparent?" she whispered, with a return to at least the macabre aspect of her humor.

"I believe you did."

"I'm going to ask them how their morning was, and then see if my mother wants any help in the kitchen," she said, still staring straight ahead. "While acting completely normal."

"Good idea. Um, right behind you."

/


	14. Chapter 14

_**A/N: Thank you! You have read and reviewed and been just lovely. I have not written to acknowledge reviews which is lax of me. But at least I wrote THIS for you. I sweated this in parts. Feel free to reassure me I have not sent you running for the hills.**_

_**So much for 6 or 7 chapters.**_

_**the bad commas are mine. the good belong to dancesabove.**_

:)

* * *

><p>Monday after work Foyle stood outside the station in what remained of the afternoon light. He pulled his hand from his pocket to try his hat at a new angle... Something a little more self-satisfied—celebratory even—given that they had made it through their first day back. Something decidedly off-duty. Because he was well and properly sure that he and Sam could not have made it through another hour feigning normalcy.<p>

He was lost to his thoughts when his sergeant addressed him.

"Waiting for Sam to drive you home, sir?" came Sergeant Milner's voice from behind him.

Foyle ducked his head and smiled as he turned. This was how it would begin—the easing into the public side of this.

Sam and he had discussed this on their train ride to Hastings that morning, and neither relished suddenly announcing an engagement to those outside their families. They wanted a day or two to sort out when the wedding would be, where they might live, and any of a hundred other details, before they suffered the attention. Both of them liked the idea that everyone around them would see at least a semblance of some expected courtship. Something less abrupt than a jarring stepping from the train and announcing the change. Most importantly, neither wanted Sam's job jeopardized too soon.

"No, Sergeant," Foyle replied amiably. "No. Um. Waiting for Sam, to take her to dinner."

There was aired an "I see" that came in time with a door roughly pushed open.

"I'm sorry that took so long!" Sam announced, apparently meaning her change to civilian clothes.

"No matter. It turned out well." Foyle looked down then, as if in thought. "You look lovely," he said matter-of-factly when he met her eyes again.

"And you look like you are in a good mood," she decided, as she assessed first the hat and then his face.

"Why shouldn't I be?" he bandied back as he adjusted the trilby yet again.

"Well, good night, sir," a stunned-seeming Paul Milner managed. "Sam."

Sam and Foyle both bid him farewell. And Sam wasted no time in taking her man's arm.

/ /

Dinner at a nearby restaurant was a quiet struggle. This night out was supposed to compensate for the day they had spent in the office, together but properly apart. Sam wanted to hold his hand while they waited for their food; she wanted to touch at his cheek. They were quite clearly in a different world from all the other diners. That was all she could possibly conclude.

Once dinner was done, they walked slowly to Sam's lodgings. Her landlady would allow Sam to entertain him for an hour, perhaps. But there was no escaping the very public sitting room. Given that, they agreed they might as well avoid that torture altogether. And so it was that Sam found herself tugging at Foyle's coat as they talked on her stoop.

"This is ridiculous," she complained.

"Society has its conventions, young lady."

"Stop making such a good show of it, Christopher. You'll make me feel like a letch if I'm the only one suffering."

He nearly laughed. Sam _would_ set him an impossible task: She expected him to demonstrate that he was also suffering over their need to part for the night. But she would expect, of course, that he not create any embarrassment or tease her too much in the process.

"Behave," he murmured in her ear. Then his hand squeezed her hip quickly as his teeth nipped her ear. He hoped that covered it.

"And we don't even have a date set," she lamented with a moan.

"We have the list of dates your father's church is available. Take the first of those. The license can't hold us up that long."

"That's three weeks at the earliest."

"I am quite aware of that," he whispered at her neck. "Not happy about it. Just aware."

"Say 'painfully aware,'" she joked.

That earned her a mock warning look. "Tomorrow we'll get the license paperwork started on our lunch. And you should begin looking for a place for us to live."

"Just me?" she asked.

"There's no point in my looking at places you don't like," he smiled. "I'll go over the short list you've approved."

Her face lit up, and she tugged on his coat playfully. "Goodness, you're easy."

"I'll remember you said that, five years from now. Now say 'goodnight,' Sam."

"I will, but… do you know, I actually miss our being at my parents' house?"

He crooked a slightly impatient eyebrow at her, and she went on, "We were expected to behave. And we did behave for the most part... But we got to be together the whole time. Every meal. All evening. We weren't half as chaperoned as I feel back here in Hastings."

"Temporary, Sam," he soothed. "And in the meantime..."

"We just need to make the best of it."

"Exactly. I'd best go," he told her, trying to sound sure. "We've treated three men, two couples and a dog to our long, tortured goodbye. If the wardens come by, they'll recognize me, and I would regret that. _I'd _be the one made to feel like the letch, then."

…

While he walked home, he thought about how he wanted their next evening to go. He would have her over to the house Tuesday night for dinner in. No landlady, no waiters or wardens to worry about. He could satisfy his need to have his hands on her. He felt giddy and nervous and foolish over it. And he suddenly resented the idea of sleeping alone as he had not in years.

But when he thought more about having her to Steep Lane, he realized there might be another sort of chaperone in Sam's eyes. Would she want to be in his house full of ghosts?

That night, pictures were delicately removed from their prominence and placed in the room Andrew used.

That done, he had other realities to consider as he settled into bed. No matter how much he wanted to join her in her enthusiasm over the relationship, he had to take the firm line. He would not keep her overnight with him.

It was bad enough to feel that there was a timer running—one that was indeterminate, but final—marking the last days of Sam's tenure as driver. Worse was the possibility that they would muck up even these last days, if they were not careful. The pair needed to make sure that she was given the opportunity to resign rather than being shamefully forced out. And so, avoiding scandal was the key. That would allow her to find some other position with a recommendation on police stationery in hand. And it would allow _him_ to avoid any sticky censure.

For all Sam's optimism over the future, Foyle knew she'd feel the sting the day she was no longer in the office with him. It would only be made worse if she were removed sooner and amid accusations.

Having painfully decided on restraint, he turned in bed to squeeze his pillow harder.

"How can I miss having you here next to me, Sam, when we've never even spent the night together?" he was moved to ask the dark.

/ / /

Tuesday at the office went a lot like Monday. Foyle was still deluged with paperwork and briefings. Sam was still stumbling over how to act around him. On her third trip to his desk to drop off requested files, he finally said something personal to her... not that it was anything romantic. The man merely whispered, "Relax, Sam." The laugh that answered him was tense and dubious.

…

Out back there were no longer any cats for her to feed, but that was where he found her later. They stood their respectable distance apart and looked straight ahead.

"They've all moved on. The cats," she explained. "Even that has changed."

He only nodded.

And then she said, "It reminds me of something I said after I… forced the issue. Before Christmas." She risked a quick look at him before facing front again. "About things being 'spoilt all the same.'"

"I remember."

"I don't mean that I regret a thing. But work is all spoilt, isn't it?"

"Not 'spoilt', but I know what you mean."

"Even though I'm not out a job yet, all of this is changed."

"If I had my choice of things, Sam, you'd get to choose if you wanted to stay. You know that, I hope." He glanced at her just quickly then before raising his eyes again to the far wall. "But the truth is, I think I might be part of the problem. Being your boss was tricky enough before..."

"Well, it's just a few weeks," she said as an encouragement.

"Just a few weeks," he echoed. And he didn't know whether he was glad that she had not pushed him to explain just how much of a problem he thought their working together would be.

/

Tuesday night she came by his place for dinner. She helped him with the cooking, although he insisted the job was his.

She liked the music on while she worked, and he found that he did too, if only because of the way it made her smile and laugh. She soon forgot herself enough to hum along and, finally, she began to sway in time to the song. And it all made him want to touch her.

DCS Foyle was a restrained man. Not one who gave in despite compulsion. But he found his arms around her before he knew what he had done. She gasped in surprise before relaxing back against him. He could feel his own smile pulling hard at his face as he pressed his lips to the side of her neck. "We could go into the other room," he said. "Or the bedroom even..."

He hadn't thought the suggestion would make her uncomfortable.

"I'm... I'm still out of sorts, so to speak," Sam told him, as she avoided looking at him.

She was confirming, in all her blushing glory, that it was still _that _time of the month. He sighed in response, astonished, and almost sad that she could be so bold with him one moment and so discomfited the next.

"It's all right," he told her gently. "I figured as much. But dinner just needs to cook now. We've earned a break. We could still lie down together while we wait. _If_ you like. I hate that I'll have to walk you home later... and I just thought we could... um..." He was lost for a good description of what he wanted.

"Just lie down together," she finished, as she turned to let him kiss her better.

He led her to the downstairs room she had used during her stay with him two years before, and sat on the bed.

"Sometimes, you might find you don't mind so much. Later," he told her as he guided her to lie down beside him.

There was a kiss and then she murmured against his lips, "Sex, you mean?"

"Mmm, hmm." he allowed before kissing her again.

"When I'm… a bit out of sorts?" she clarified before demanding more from him.

"Mmm. Not that I mind when you tell me we can't." He didn't want or need for them to discuss that further. God knows, she might still be feeling embarrassed. He was a tad embarrassed, as well.

So, he headed off any conversation by stretching out along top of her, and then pulling her arms up above her head slowly. When his mouth worked at her breast through her shirt, she hissed. "Sorry," he said quietly. "Tender?"

"No." And she smiled shyly to let him know it was more that she had enjoyed the attentions.

She tugged at his shirt to urge him up to kiss her. And he did; he kissed her as sweetly as he knew how, but he made no move to let things progress too far. Still, he kissed down to the limit of her shirt's buttons, and then pushed at the fabric just gently to reveal a little more of her to his mouth.

When he was resting with his lips near hers again, he whispered to her, asking, of all things, how she thought the day had gone. And she answered him as she traced her fingers across his jaw, and as she reveled at the feel of him pressing firmly against her.

Things continued easily like that for another 20 minutes until he rolled to his side. "Soup should be warm," he said with a lilt that could have been better used to say something more seductive.

"_I_ certainly am," she said with an shamed arm thrown over her face.

"Come along." And he tugged on that arm. He was sitting up now at the side of the bed. "Chicken soup. Warm bread. You'll love it. The cook here is a marvel."

"He certainly is," she said, eyebrows arching in an amused sort of way as she sat up at last.


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N: Thank you so much for reading this madness (that I promised to wrap up 10 chapters ago.)**_

_**dancesabove had her work cut out for her with this one. I am going for smiles and sighes. Let me know how I've done.**_

* * *

><p>Superintendent Reid walked through to Foyle's office come Wednesday afternoon, seeming happy and amiable despite the dark uniform.<p>

"I had hoped to see you Monday... or yesterday. When did you get back?" Hugh asked as he closed the door behind him.

Foyle went for 'distracted' in the manner he was projecting. That and nonchalance. He restacked some papers and avoided the man's eyes. "It was Monday morning. The paperwork has kept me pinned down since about 10 minutes after I walked in. That and the spate of arsons." He waved the relevant file, but his attempt at distraction fell flat.

"You stayed at the Stewarts' house until the morning you were due back to work? You just came straight here off the first train?" a near-incredulous Reid asked.

"Yes," was all the answer Foyle risked.

Christopher did not miss how Hugh narrowed his gaze then, or the way there seemed to be an inner turn of wheels playing out across the man's forehead. "With Sam?" Hugh finally asked.

"Yes."

"Was it that hard to convince her to come back?"

The detective's mouth gaped and closed a moment while he floundered over what to say. "There was... ah, more to the visit than just convincing her to come back."

"What sort of 'more'?" his friend desperately wanted to know.

"Maybe we should talk about this after work," Christopher tried.

"_Straight away_ after work, old man. Come by the house," Hugh insisted with the most curious of looks.

…..

On his walk to face the Reids, Christopher realized he had been right. Usually this triumph of propicience led to at least a modicum of self-satisfaction, but not this time. He had not wanted to be right when he predicted the reactions he and Sam would garner once the relationship became obvious.

The assumptions he had worried about had already been made in just these few days since their return. Waiters, Sam's landlady, shopkeepers, and, of course, Milner. Hastings had become a sea of raised eyebrows. And whispered comments.

Even the telephone call to Andrew had netted him a stunned reaction.

"_How long, Dad?" Andrew had wanted to know once he found his voice. The younger man immediately apologized for prying, but Christopher could tell how much Andrew desperately wanted to understand what had taken place._

"_You know I've been fond of her for so very long. Almost from the start."_

"_Fond of her, well sure. But..."_

_And Christopher had to smile. His son was, no doubt, worried Sam was dooming herself to a __**fond**__, but passionless, marriage._

"_I fell in love with her. But I didn't want to let her know," the elder man patiently explained._

"_And once she knew you loved her, there was no stopping her," Andrew supplied._

_Foyle had to laugh at that assessment. "I spent the New Year's weekend with her and her parents in Lyminster, and it all just clicked into place."_

"_That's why you were so out of sorts when I was visiting over Christmas," Andrew announced with a hint of victory in his voice. "Sam had run off home, and you were lovesick over her."_

"_I'll have you know she was lovesick over me," his father tried to joke. _

"_Of course, Dad. And I'm so glad for you. Really."_

"_Truly? This isn't going to be difficult?" Christopher found himself asking._

"_How could I not understand why you'd want to be with her? She's a gorgeous girl. Sweet and fun..."_

… ... ...

'_She's a gorgeous girl.'_

Even Andrew had boiled Sam's attributes down to just that and two others. Foyle hated this perception so many observers seemed to have—that he was with Sam because she was young and beautiful. The glances he intercepted when they were out seemed to signal that people thought the attraction was on his part purely physical.

Christopher tried to forget his doubts and misgivings as he stood with Hugh at last in Reid's study. He was intent on Hugh and his wife being the first in Hastings to know that, far beyond just stepping out together, he and Sam were planning to marry. So Christopher decided to tell the man without preamble.

Foyle's old friend greeted the news most enthusiastically. With an impressive speed and a ridiculous grin, Reid congratulated him, called his wife to the room, and then moved to find drinks so that there could be a toast.

"To Sam. The prettiest police driver I have ever..." Reid stopped in mid-accolade when his wife touched his arm to let him know that something was amiss. "What's bothering you, Christopher?" he asked with a laugh.

"Sam's _not_ just that," Foyle said, tiredly.

"What?"

"Lord, Hugh. Keep up," Emma Reid chimed in. "He's saying Sam's not just pretty. I think that's nice of him to do."

There was a moment's pause. A questioning look before Reid addressed the detective. "Ah! You're embarrassed that the woman you are going to marry is younger and well, far prettier than you?"

Foyle rolled his eyes at Reid's lighthearted jab. "No, not embarrassed. I'm insulted when people think that _that_ is why I would marry her. When people _-men-__, _mainly—see me out with Sam, there is a certain response. The line I overheard was 'I can see why.' _I can see why_, as if the reason I am with her is just what you see."

"You don't think you might be overreacting, just a little?" Hugh asked, more gently now.

"No. Well, yes. Perhaps," Foyle admitted as he put a hand to his forehead. "And I suppose," he said, as if he had found his resolution, "as Sam's husband, I will just keep at it that way until I am senile."

"To a happy senility then," came Mrs. Reid's revised and joyous toast.

/ / / / / / / / / / /

That Thursday Sam left Christopher at the station so he could finish up his reports, and she went to visit friends. The two roommates she dropped in on asked her if she would go dancing with them that weekend.

Sam felt caught in a lie before she had even begun. "I would…" she started. "But I already have plans. I'm seeing someone seriously now."

"Who?" Doris asked eagerly.

"Christopher Foyle. The DCS I drive for at..."

The looks on the young women's faces and the momentary stop to conversation were unmistakable. It was what Christopher had warned Sam would happen.

"Your _boss_? The old policeman?" came Mary's scandalized reply at last.

"He is my boss, I suppose. But he's not..." Sam objected.

"Isn't he going to get in trouble for all this? I mean, you are working for him, and he just what... asks you to dinner?" Doris threw in.

"That does seem wrong," Mary agreed.

"Well," Sam tried, "maybe _I_ asked him."

"Just come dancing with us," Mary began. "He can't expect you to sit around."

Sam couldn't even speak at first. "Look! I'm thrilled with him. My parents like him..."

"Is that why you are seeing him? Your folks are giving you an earful about _'settling down'_?" Doris asked, as if she'd had the same comical conversation with her parents.

"You are probably just drawn to older men. Your father's quite old, isn't he?" the other woman put in, terribly seriously.

"Dear God!" Sam said with annoyance as she grabbed her sweater to leave.

She walked to the station to find Christopher. As she passed through the doors, the duty sergeant nodded to her. She continued past him with only half her usual smile.

"Leave it open, Sam," Foyle chided gently when he saw her hand on the inside knob of his office door. They had talked behind closed doors before but they couldn't now that people in the office suspected there was something between them.

She sighed horribly.

"Tell me," he said, capping his pen.

"Apparently I've been associating with idiots for the past year," she huffed.

"You told your friends who you were seeing."

"Yes."

"That bad?" he coaxed.

"Well, they don't know you. They are just judging on..." she trailed off.

"Did you get defensive?" he guessed, his expression amused and knowing.

"I may have." She ducked her head at the way he made her feel when he understood her like this. Warm. Loved and enfolded. "What about you?"

"I approve your choice. Remember?" he joked slyly.

"No. Is anyone giving _you_ a hard time? But I can't imagine anyone teases the DCS, do they?"

He was silent a moment too long. The strange way he held his mouth said it all. "You, too?," Sam exclaimed. "People have been after you about me being unsuitable or too young..."

"Superintendent Reid is delighted, of course. Congratulates himself on the whole thing." _And pounded me on the arm hard enough to leave bruises,_ he thought to himself. "But I see the way people look at us now. Things go quiet when we walk into a room."

"We should tell people we are engaged," Sam assessed.

"Soon."

"We know what they think now, don't we?" she told him, seriously.

"Mmm hmm. And if we'd come back and just announced the engagement, people would have hidden what they thought. At least, that's what I believe."

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / /

They found it necessary to tell Milner about their plans on Friday, the same day that they settled on a place for Sam. Foyle had thought they perhaps could wait until Monday to have the news run through the office. But it wasn't to be.

...

"What is it, Sam? You're acting nervous and giddy. You're walking into everyone this afternoon," Paul said as he again kept her from colliding with him.

"It's nothing," she stammered. But as she did so, she cast a glance toward the DCS' office, letting her eyes rest on the man who was walking toward them, head down.

Christopher looked up as if he could feel their eyes on him. And he assessed their stares. One seemed guilty; the other confused. And so Foyle closed the file he was carrying, as if to acknowledge at least to himself that things had some to a head.

"How about tea in my office, Sam?" Foyle asked as he came closer. "Sergeant Milner, you should join us. Just give us a few minutes."

"Yes, sir," Paul replied, before he dutifully ducked back into his own office.

Foyle and Sam then whispered in what passed for a kitchen as Sam fiddled with the tea things.

"What happened, Sam?"

"Sergeant Milner seems to have noticed that I am not myself."

"Oh. Really?" he teased.

"Maybe it's having signed that lease," she said in an enthusiastic hush. "I keep thinking about... earlier."

"That's it? The house?"

"Mmm... well, _parts_ of the new house." She looked apologetic as she whispered it.

Their eyes locked, and he just stared at her, his mouth seemed to want to form words that would not come. The thought was shared then in that moment; he was sure of it. He knew now that he had been deluded to hope they could keep from betraying themselves at the office.

... ... ...

It had been a few hours earlier that they had skived off at lunch to sign the lease. Keys in hand then, Sam had begged that they walk through the empty house on their own before returning to the station. They toured every room, chatting about wall color and furniture. Until the master bedroom. "And, well..." was all she had managed as she pictured the bed that would be theirs, and how it would be to reach out and draw him to her in the hush and the dark of any night.

And in that empty room, he had broken through her thoughts with the light touch of fingertips to the back of her neck. The kiss he'd laid to her jaw then had lingered. It was so, so simple. It should not have worked at her at all. But to Sam it was as if he carried the mad pulse that was in the air.

_This would be their bedroom._

It had taken no time at all, it seemed, for a silent and shared sense of desire to dictate, as they kissed, that her uniform jacket should find the floor. Less than a minute later, she would brace herself against the wall as he shrugged out of his suit coat.

She opened her eyes to better gauge his intent even as her fingers curved tensely against his back. He pressed himself against her. The bedroom wall was noticeably cool through her shirt. His chest warm and reassuring in counterpoint. And when his stance shifted, it brought him impossibly closer, and things were hard and insistent.

Good and intoxicating. And still, not enough.

"Mmm... Christopher?" she murmured as she broke off the kiss to rest her forehead against his. And she pressed back, unconsciously angling her hips to meet his.

The answer to her question was in the way his breath finally started to ease. The way he nuzzled softly at her neck. And pulled back just that inch.

_We won't. Not now. But we will. _

With hushed tones and careful hands, they had put the coats back on. Their smiles were strangely shy then as they became who they needed to be once more, and headed back to the office.

…

The same shy look met her now as they stood in the small office kitchen.

Sam grabbed the kettle, and with a flush, she hurried to fill it. "Sorry," she said, as if taking responsibility for conjuring the memory in his brain.

"Tea will be good, Sam," Foyle managed before he bit at his thumb. She blew out a breath and nodded as he wisely backed away.

The upside, Christopher decided, as he retrieved the box of tea for her, was that telling his sergeant that he was marrying his driver was going to be far easier than facing Sam over the kettle on any given day.

... ... ...

Directly after work, Sam broke the news to her landlady and telephoned her parents to arrange for some furnishings from their house to be sent. Then, over dinner at his house, she and Christopher discussed what things might come over from Steep Lane. And their new place began to come together, in their minds at least.

They would keep Foyle's old house, turning it over to an agent to lease, they still agreed. Christopher hoped the place would stay in the family. His private fantasy was that Andrew would marry and bring a woman home there to live.

He told Sam all this, once they were settled on the couch. He talked about the future in a faraway voice as he pushed strands of her hair to rest behind her ear. There was a faint pout to him that she finally had to smile at.

"What is it?" he wanted to know as he smiled back.

"Adorable," she whispered as she leaned in to kiss him.

"I have to get you home," he said, as a test. There was, she was sure, a hopeful lilt to his voice.

"In an hour?" she suggested. She pulled closer to let her lips plead her case.

His hand ran up her leg and down again, smooth and enticing. It was an offer, not a demand. She answered by pushing the braces from his shoulders while she kissed him, as if her hands had taken to undressing him without her awareness.

"Here?" she asked, even as she welcomed the weight of him against her.

_As if it matters where we are,_ she thought, because the world had shrunk to the shared glimmer in their eyes.

He paused, obviously thinking as carefully as he could, given the war within him. _Will we? Should we? And where?_

"I want to take you to bed..." it sounded like a preamble to talking himself out of it because of the hour or the propriety of returning her late to her lodgings.

"We are married, after all," she tried with a sultry voice, and a finger trailed inside his shirt.

He smiled crookedly as if playing with a memory. One involving a boat, she hoped. "Indeed, we are," he agreed.

He kissed her hotly then, making her groan at the suggestive rhythm he set. But he stopped suddenly—to her most vocal disappointment. Had it escaped her notice, he wondered as he strained to move without falling, that he was barely even on the couch and that they were severely hemmed in?

"Must we risk injury every time we do this?" Christopher whispered impishly. "There are safer places. The back bedroom?"

/

Saturday morning Foyle awoke early, and, finding himself unhappily alone, he decided to begin sorting the front room shelves into a scattering of cardboard boxes. As he hand-weighed an abused copy of _Robinson Crusoe,_ he was rescued by a knock at his front door.

He was completely surprised to find Elizabeth on his step. He had not seen her in two years—and that meeting had been quite tense. He stumbled his greeting.

"Forgive the intrusion, Christopher," a discomfited Elizabeth entreated him. "I saw the 'For Let' sign, and I had to ask... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have stopped; it's just..."

"It's all right. Please, come in. I was just at the packing." He pulled the door all the way open and stepped out of her way, a nervous smile on his lips.

"Will you tell me why you are moving? I worry, with the war, that things are always bad news."

"No. I'm fine. My son's fine. But… have you had bad news?" he instinctively felt moved to ask.

She faltered then before she got her words out. "Christopher. Why are you moving?"

He pointed the way to his sitting room and answered her as he followed her in. "I wanted a smaller place. Well, someplace new," he said, surveying the walls as he walked. "Without all this... history." He drew a deep breath. "I'm getting married."

There was a plainly shocked silence, but the smile that followed was genuine. "Oh, congratulations, Christopher. Truly."

He thanked her and finally asked her to sit down.

"She doesn't want to live here?" Elizabeth wondered aloud, once she was settled. "Or is it _you_ who wants the move?"

Foyle took up a chair across from her. "Samantha would never say she minded living here with all my ghosts... but it doesn't seem quite fair to her."

"We all have our pasts and our ghosts," she countered.

"She has less of a past, shall we say. Significantly less."

"You are positively sheepish over that admission, Christopher." Elizabeth almost laughed. "You mean, she's younger."

"Not yet thirty."

"Even the not-yet-thirties have a sense of past. Not quite the same as you and I; I grant you that."

She seemed so at ease. Christopher felt a measure of surprise as he realized it. Still, there was something he needed to ask.

"You were the one to mention bad news," he said gently as he leaned forward. "Has something happened?"

She pressed her lips together a moment as if willing herself not to flinch. "My son. Christopher was killed."

"I'm so sorry. I hadn't heard, or I would have..."

"I am reconciled to it. To this new life," she said, looking down for a moment. And he could see how fresh and raw her grief must be.

His stomach tightened. "Your other son?" Foyle almost whispered.

"He was caught in a blast in France. The poor boy is deaf in one ear... but alive," she assured him. "He's home with us just now."

"How is your husband?"

"Arthur's been wonderful through this. I've seen the way things like this can tear couples apart, and well... He simply would not allow it. I felt as if I were drowning for weeks after we got the news. I wouldn't have minded if I was. But Arthur was... so good." She breathed heavily and looked at him squarely again. "I've never known such guilt as I have of late. Guilt for being distant from Arthur when he was so constant. Guilt for the things I've said to you."

"I understand how guilt can linger. _And_ regret," he said, quietly and quite seriously. "I'd like to think I'm past that, finally. I wouldn't want you to feel such a thing on my account. And I am sure Arthur does not think there is anything to forgive."

She smiled and there was a long, thoughtful silence. Finally, she stood to leave. In silence, they moved to the hall.

"She loves you immensely, I can tell," Elizabeth suddenly said.

Christopher said nothing, but the question was there on his face.

"No ordinary woman or lukewarm sort of emotion was going to move you." Her smile widened as she motioned to a box. "Figuratively or literally."

He thought about that young woman then. The one who, just last night, had kissed him as she ably navigated this hallway backwards, her hands at his buttons. Her warm breath had teased at his ear as she strained to tell him how much she loved him. Needed him.

Christopher cleared his throat. "Not at all ordinary," he confirmed.


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N: Grown-up content warning. T taken to its tantalizing limits. That is what T stands for on FF, right? **_

_**Dancesabove worked her editorial magic with this. But then I happened all over it at the last minute. So, grammatical errors and oddities remain mine.**_

_**Thank you all for reading. Your reviews have been just great to get. If you enjoy this, then I am happy. **_

* * *

><p>Two weeks before the wedding there was some wrestling. And none of it the enjoyable type. It all involved the reassembly of the bed that had arrived from her parents' house.<p>

"You know," Sam said, trying to be helpful, "they say if you can move furniture together or paddle a boat together, it means you are well suited."

Christopher squinted up from his place on the floor, seeming doubtful or perhaps just frustrated.

"Not that we ever _paddled_ in a boat, mind you," she continued.

He fumbled the screw at the memory of their joint nautical experience and then groaned.

On their hands and knees together then, they looked for the renegade screw, until there came a knock from downstairs.

"There must be someone at the door. And _you_ look as though you could use a break. So, why don't you get it?" she suggested, sweetly.

Once he had left the room, Sam hefted the headboard hard against the wall and then grinned. She would surprise him and get the bed frame at least part way done without him.

"Dad?" The word drifted up the stairs and made her stop a second.

She puffed at a lock of hair that had fallen in her face and made one more turn with the screwdriver. Quickly she propped the other end of the bed frame with a few books so she could hurry downstairs.

Sam couldn't hear Christopher's end of the conversation. There were only the murmurs of greetings, questions, and low answers as she descended.

"Andrew! We were just upstairs. Sorry," Sam called out happily as she saw him at last. She pushed at her mussed hair again. "I'm glad you found the new place."

"How are you?" the younger Foyle asked. Andrew leaned in and let Sam kiss his cheek as she reached the landing.

"I'm fine, but I've worn out your father, I'm afraid," Sam volunteered as she stroked Christopher's arm. She paused then, leaving an air of innuendo hanging there that she was the last to grasp. She could see something in the hopeful cant to Christopher's eyebrows. It took her a moment to realize that he was begging her to explain things a little better, and quickly.

"We've been moving boxes. And assembling...ah..." she pointed upstairs and then rested that hand on her forehead in her discomfort. _This was worse_, she thought.

"Furniture," Christopher tried to supply. But it was too late.

"The bed," Sam concluded. And even she noted that she had ended the statement with far less confidence than she had begun it. "There you have it," she added weakly.

"I can see this is going to be... awkward," the younger Foyle muttered.

"No!" Sam jumped in. "Never. Not at all. You just have to think of us as an old married couple. I do already." She had Andrew by the elbow and was leading him further into the house. "I'm going to feed him," she told Christopher. "Well. Feed us. Right?"

The elder Foyle nodded his agreement and fell in behind her.

"Why are you here ten days early, Andrew? I won't ask why you are here unannounced, as that is your modus operandi." Foyle forced a smile.

"I've got a week's leave now."

Sam and Christopher both stopped then. "A week's?" the elder man echoed. There could be only one reason he would be given so much time off.

"New orders," Sam guessed.

Andrew nodded glumly. "So, I'll miss the wedding."

"Can't be helped. Really. We understand," his father let him know with a quick hand to his back. But the elder Foyle was biting his cheek now.

"And we'll actually see more of you this way," Sam put in, trying to sound happy. "The wedding's going to be... Well, my relatives will be there..."

"Is that so bad?" Andrew asked with a laugh.

"The stories will be," she assured him.

"Sam was an inventive child, and they are still talking about some of her exploits," Christopher offered. "But quite seriously, Andrew. I'm glad you are here. Do sit down."

Sam prompted her fiancé to put the kettle on with a quick word and a hand to his sleeve. Then she continued to buzz about the kitchen.

It wasn't that Sam touched his dad excessively, Andrew thought as he watched the pair. Just that it was strange to see _anyone_ touch him. For the most part the elder Foyle returned Sam's familiarity with only smiles. Nods. He kept his hands in his pockets and leaned against a counter. Perhaps not trusting himself. Perhaps, Andrew thought, the man was used to being able to touch her in return, and felt he could not do any of that when they were not alone.

... ... ...

The meal may have been light on food, but the accompanying conversation was vibrant and happy. Andrew told stories about his trainees in Debden. Sam was never short on something entertaining to add. Even Christopher entered the fray in his quiet way, when he exaggerated his complaints about Sam eventually leaving the station.

"I will likely never have another intelligent literary conversation while in the car, I will never get my tea on time again or have it delivered to my office quite so cheerfully. And there will be no one there to deftly find me the information Sam always somehow does. But she tells me this change is all for the best," he teased. He looked at Sam and smiled faintly. "She's right, of course," he said, more to her than to Andrew. "She almost always is."

"I don't know if I should kiss you or steal your teacup at times like these," Sam told him quietly when she'd recovered.

There was silence then as the Foyle men seemed to worriedly await her decision. She stood to fiddle awkwardly with the kettle, but not until after she had touched her dear Christopher's arm. Andrew guessed it had been kissing his father and not stealing back the man's teacup that she had contemplated doing. Christopher's cheeks were warmed with the emotion he had inadvertently provoked. His eyes were on his cup, and his smile wistful and somehow private.

Sam cleared her throat nervously. "Why don't you two take your tea to the front room where it's comfortable, and I'll clean up in here."

"You could let us help," Andrew chimed in.

Christopher started gathering the items from the table then, while Sam donned an apron and filled the sink. There was his whisper over her shoulder, and she replied that the two men really should have some time to talk alone.

... ... ...

Father and son talked of mutual acquaintances. Of football and food shortages. All manner of thing for a brief-seeming half-hour.

Presently Christopher looked at his watch and rose from his chair. "We should head back to the house for the night," he told Andrew. "I just need to say goodnight to Sam."

"I should..." Andrew began. And he was about to say "come, too," when he realized, if only from his father's most conflicted posture, that he needed to give the couple a moment. It struck Andrew then – and hard – that they truly were that. A real and proper couple. A new one at that. One that needed moments. Alone.

"You go first," Andrew amended, nervously.

"Well, I'll fetch her out to say goodbye. Won't be a minute," his father replied.

… … ...

"Get the apron off me. Would you? I think it's gone all knotted," Sam said quite clearly when she saw Christopher come into the kitchen. And it hadn't turned knotted, of course, but she wanted an excuse to have him close and to feel his hands on her.

He needed to touch her, too. So he lingered over the job.

From the other room Andrew could imagine his father's hum more than hear it.

The rest of the conversation was whispers.

"You'll really miss me at work? That much? You weren't just joking, were you?" she asked urgently.

"That was a terrible way to let you know how much I'll miss you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made it sound like I was teasing you."

"I'll miss you. Tonight, I mean," Sam said sadly.

"It's only the night."

"Still. It will be nice when..."

"Yes… You'll come out to say 'goodnight'?" He paused to survey her expression and felt a beat behind. "Something's wrong?"

"I need your arms around me just a moment before you go. Please. Very tightly."

"Of course."

/ / / / / / /

The next morning Foyle moved quickly to answer the door. He'd dreamt of her. Wanted her all night.

"Good morning," she bade him with her usual cheerfulness as she cleared his threshold.

He closed the door and pulled lightly at her to gather her up without any words.

"I missed you, too," she told him in response to the unexpectedly physical greeting.

He hummed a laugh at her temple. "Exactly."

"Andrew not up yet?" she guessed.

"He's having a lie-in."

"I worry about me," Sam began once they'd eased apart a bit. "Everything you say lately seems erotic."

He answered her with a kiss that could only reaffirm that thought.

"It is going to be a long day," he concurred at last.

"I smell toast," Andrew announced from the top of the stairs.

"There's jam open, too. On the table? From my parents," Sam called back. She gave her fiancé a wicked smile.

The detective narrowed his eyes at her in question, clearly wondering how she knew about the open jam. And she leaned in to answer quickly. "I can taste it on you." She smiled and passed her thumb over his lips as if to catch at jam there.

Christopher hastily swallowed a growl.

Andrew rounded the corner then. And found his father – hands in pockets – standing with a pleased-looking Sam.

...

"How _is_ Andrew?" Sam asked quietly as she dropped off paperwork at Foyle's desk that afternoon.

"What does he think? Is that what you are asking?" the man surmised. He stacked his papers while he spoke, but did not risk a look at her.

"Well. Yes. That is what I was wondering."

"If he tells me he is happy for us one more time, I am going to get extremely suspicious," Foyle summed up.

"We threw folks for a loop with this, I figure. We either look as if we are rushing things or as if we have finally caved in after two years of… well, excessive forbearance."

"Excessive forbearance? Is there such a thing?" He tried to joke quietly.

"I'm serious," she admonished. "Is Andrew thinking either way?"

"Both actually, if I am guessing right. I think he believes I am rushing things. Moving faster than I might be comfortable moving. But then, he is fairly certain I am the human equivalent to a tortoise," he told her with an impish look in his eye. "You, he believes, have patiently worked your magic on me."

Sam nodded. "That should make a lovely bedtime story for the kids," she whispered. "The tortoise and the magical fairy MTC princess. Odd, but..." And with that, she placed the last file (the one she had been holding back as a sort of prop to prolong the conversation) down on his desk. "Back to work," she declared, before he could get the same words out.

/ / / /

When Sam arrived to drive Christopher to work the next day, he surprised her by telling her he was taking a day's leave to spend with his son.

"I'll be about town if anyone needs me. Perhaps down by the river."

"And what will I do?" Sam asked.

"Drive for Milner. Find some cats to feed? Solve a murder," he suggested with a rise to his eyebrows. "And then come by here for dinner."

"Oh, that's fine by me, Foyle," she teased as she put her hat back on. "Only I figure all that will only take me until lunch." She was grinning as she kissed him on the cheek. "I'll see you later, Andrew!" she called past her bemused fiancé.

… … …

Andrew had been at the Steep Lane house three days now. Which had made for a lovely, full few days, but it also meant it had been far too long since they had enjoyed any time alone.

After dinner that night, Foyle stood with Sam at the door and snapped his hat into place. With his head down to hide any expression, he called out to his son in the next room.

"Andrew?"

"Yes, Dad?"

"I'm walking Sam home."

"Right."

There was a strange pause. "Don't wait up," Christopher said levelly. As levelly as he could manage.

… … ...

"You'll stay for a bit?" Sam asked, as she worked the key into her lock.

He only nodded and followed her in.

Foyle turned her with slow, purposeful hands as she finished pulling the blackout curtain. He kissed her in something like slow motion before easing her to lean against the wall. "Hello, Sam. How are you?" he said, as if they were seeing each other for the first time in far too long. Because it did feel like that.

"I've missed you," she replied with a smile and a touch to his hair.

"Let's go upstairs."

His voice seemed tired, and she wondered if he would merely chat with her as she prepared for bed or if he might consent to lying down with her for just a bit.

Their outer coats were placed on the banister at the bottom of the stairs without another word. When they stopped to kiss on the upstairs landing, he removed his suit coat and hung it there.

"Sam," he said with a quiet sort of agony. He was begging her to understand his need and apologizing for it all in one.

"Right here, Christopher," she answered as she tugged at his sides.

The feel of him against her had made the want so tangible, she thought. She could feel it in the heaviness, the ache that hummed inside her.

Her sense of desire was mirrored and plain in his measured breathing and in the taut feel of his muscles beneath her hands.

"Come to bed with me, for just a little while?" she asked.

And he nodded silently.

She lit a single candle on the bureau and then turned to find him in just his shirt and trousers.

They kissed slowly. And undressed each other while making gradual progress towards the bed.

He refused to rush or to be rushed. But there was just as surely not a moment wasted.

She was between the sheets first. Naked and beautiful to him. _Free from any shyness,_ he thought, as he looked at her.

Propped on one elbow, she waited for him as he sat on the edge of their newly assembled bed to push off his shorts.

"I love you," she reminded him. Her fingers trailed down his bare spine adoringly.

He was lying beside her then, and Sam pulled at his hip to urge him closer. She caressed him until he was desperately hard. His hand trailed between them to reciprocate, but he made no move yet to cover her body with his.

She moaned. Gently protesting the pace of things. His fingers shifted from lightly teasing her to testing at her then as she rolled encouragingly to her back.

Sam lifted against his hand to encourage him deeper. She moved almost harshly, demanding more from him. From this brief chance to be together.

It was frustration, he knew, and not necessarily only a sexual one. She was fed up with the war, with the uncertainty, with the petty gossips and their idiot theories that tried to taint what she and he had together.

The least he could do was take her mind off it for a simple half-hour.

Everything he registered worked at his control. She was so wet. So ready. But he wanted her nearly there before he dared sink to her.

A low noise rose from her throat, and she lifted up to kiss him hard. Her tongue demanded a reply, exciting them both even further.

Breathless, she pulled away. "I'll finish. Without you," she warned.

He eased then. Slowed. Shushed her. And she sighed and calmed a measure. Even after only their few times together, she knew that he would move to be inside her now.

He pressed to her firmly, filling her, and then he paused to watch her. As if mesmerized, he watched her chin tilt hard as she strained back against him. His chest rumbled with a groan at the feelings she provoked in him. The physical. The emotional. He wanted to let it all take him, but he was determined to see her satisfied.

Again. Again. Again. He moved with that rhythm she seemed to crave. He broke from suckling at her throat. "Let it... for me, Sam," he begged.

She whimpered in reply and fairly writhed. She was close, he knew. So close. And with his body, he urged her the bit further, until she tensed. She sobbed out her relief then and slackened.

Relief took him after a moment more. Just as intensely.

A mere 10 minutes later, he was dressed and sitting at the edge of the mattress.

"I don't want this to seem sordid," he said, apologizing for not lingering in bed.

"We know what we are," she assured him.

"Yes." He smiled. "You are my sage old thing, aren't you?"

/ / / /

It was wonderful. Rare, she thought, as she studied his eyes three nights later. Their needs might change, but they could still find the answer in the other.

He was lost, he knew. But safe and warm with her in their new bedroom. Her arms held him, precisely, tenderly. And her hips rose slowly in reply to his.

"You are so good to me," he whispered hoarsely.

"Of course I am," she told him. She brushed at his hair then and smiled.

He needed this, she understood. To her it was obvious that he was asking for the gentleness as much as remarking on it.

The world was no easy place, and he knew the weight of it. He bore too much of it on days like this. His investigations were going slower than he would like. Far slower than his superiors wanted, too. And more importantly, today, they both knew, was the day Andrew was leaving the safety of Scotland for God-knows-where.

Neither had remarked on it, however. If he would not bring it up, she should not either, she decided. But she would hold him tonight.

Gently.

And love him as well as she knew how.

/ /


	17. Chapter 17

_**A/N: Thank you all for sticking with me and this story. It has been so much fun to write. And you have made it that fun.  
><strong>_

_**THIS is (believe it or not) the second to last chapter of what was predicted to be a 6 chapter story.  
><strong>_

_**Thanks again to dancesabove for the loan of her talented eyeballs.**_

/ /

On a chilly weekday evening, they managed one of their stolen hours – all they had decided they could afford given that they were unmarried in the eyes of their neighbors.

Foyle worked at tying his shoe laces while he sat on the sofa of their new and nearly furnished place. Sam snugged in next to him and unnecessarily fixed the edges of his hair. Their evening had been light and easy. She had needed that after the unspoken worry that had overshadowed the days since Andrew's deployment.

"I marked you, I'm afraid, Sam." He put a finger to the reddened spot at the base of her neck. Her response was only to smile at him as if she were conjuring the memory of the unrestrained way he had made love to her. The smile Foyle returned was ridiculously shy, given their relationship.

"Mmm, what else will be left for us to discover once we are married in the eyes of all, then?" she teased.

"There is one thing we haven't done together," he told her with a raised eyebrow. In truth, there were probably a half dozen that came to mind, but he wasn't going to mention that just now. "We've never actually slept together. Well, for more than an hour's nap."

"We haven't been fishing together, either."

"What a remarkable oversight," he teased.

… ... ...

He had offered her the use of his second set of waders. Sam knew enough about fishing to stay quiet as she stood by, the net in hand. But he was eying her in a curious way. He broke his own silence with a groan.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"You. The borrowed waders. You make things look... different." He seemed troubled.

"You... _like_ me in waders?" she asked, pretending to act shocked.

"Apparently. The cut of those slacks might have more to do with it." He tried to shrug his way out of this conversation.

"You like it... as in the way I like _you_ when you've got your shirt hanging open and you are standing at the sink to shave."

"I thought you just couldn't leave off talking for 20 minutes and _that_ is why you follow me in there," he joked.

"I am afraid, Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle, that I must confess to ogling you while you are at your razor. But... back to the waders. Me. Dressed like this..." She gave the strange apparel a tug up, "Puts you in the mind for something other than fishing?"

She splashed toward him then with exaggerated steps, anticipating his answer.

"Quite a bit, I'm afraid." He bit at his lip in a way she found delicious and endearing.

"Well, then?"

And he knew what she was asking.

"Yes, yes," he concluded as he pulled in his line. "Enough fish. Come here."

She collected her kisses then, knee deep in the river.

"Let's get our dinner back to your place," he murmured in her ear a few minutes later.

"Yes, and then we can leave the neighbors to wonder why it takes an hour to drop off a basket of fish."

"It might take me two, tonight."

/ / / /

They should have been off duty – Foyle, Milner and Sam. But Sam had developed the habit of swinging by all the venues the Americans frequented at the end of her shift every day. She was hoping she could somehow help break the arson cases that had targeted these places.

It was after 6 o'clock. Late for the three of them to still be together. And it was nearly dark, given the season. The crowds would be here in an hour or two. But Sam thought it better to check these spots at times like these. To see who might be skulking about.

Milner barely concealed his impatience with the practice. Christopher yielded to her instinct, especially knowing these detours only took a few minutes from their day. He looked about a bit when he was not toying with the file in his lap.

"Is that smoke?" Milner asked suddenly, incredulously.

Sam was quicker off the mark. She had the car stopped and the brake pulled in one motion. She was on the pavement before Foyle had dropped his file to the floor of the Wolseley. Despite her head start, Christopher caught up with her. He was surprised at how hard it was to stop her. It took a shoulder laid to her chest to halt her, finally. He called out for Milner then to grab Sam before she could follow him into the dance hall.

Foyle was set to go in, but the smoke from the front doors was becoming incredibly thick.

"The back!" Sam yelled as she strained against the sergeant's arms. "Not that way. Christopher."

Heeding what she'd said, Foyle doubled back and then pelted around the corner of the building.

"The torch. In the boot," Sam then insisted to the man restraining her. And when Milner loosened his grasp a moment, Sam slipped under his arm. She ran to the car and found the torch and was running for the rear of the building before Paul could get a hand on her.

Inside the club, Foyle felt nearly blind. The detective had been in this building perhaps 30 times before. Closer to 50, he chastised himself. But he found the idea of navigating it like this nearly impossible. He made it to the kitchen's swinging door and it was cool to the touch, but when he pushed at it, he could tell the room that lay beyond it was the source of the smoke.

He hollered into the kitchen, but there was no reply. This was quickly beginning to feel like a fool's errand.

When Foyle turned to find the door to the outside again, he let up a prayer. He couldn't see the way out. He took a breath through his raised coat and calmed himself. It had to be straight ahead. Forty paces.

He saw a light then. The smoke streaked light from a torch. And he heard Sam's voice calling to him.

/ / / / / /

They drove back to the station in silence. And Foyle did without his normal courtesies. He marched straight in and for his office. He dismissed Milner for the night without pausing even to look at him.

Sam decided to forget any instructions she had been given previously about avoiding cloistered meetings, and she shut the office door behind them.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

"Why are you sorry?" he asked tensely.

"I don't know what happened tonight. But, it's all changed. Worse than I thought."

He nodded at her assessment.

"I've begun to worry more," he said, dismally. "You rushed off like you were only too happy..."

"No. I just... I don't like fires..." and he couldn't place the strangeness in her voice.

"Not too many people like fires," he tried to joke. And reading her face, it was as if she had not even heard him.

"I was just going to call out. See if I could find anyone inside. Quickly..." She tensely wrapped her arms around herself as if warding off a chill.

"And I stopped you. Are you upset with me?"

She shrugged, but he was worried by how pale she had gone.

"I _never_ would have wanted you to rush into a fire," he continued. "Not before I married you, either. But the idea, well... it panicked me tonight."

She nodded and swallowed hard. "I know. We neither of us was thinking clearly. It was all panicky. Normally you never would have forgotten the torch. And I almost ran straight in the front, when the smoke was so much worse there," she ticked off, shaking her head. "All of this over some smoky fryer a cook walked out on. What are we going to do? We can't manage like this."

And for a brief paranoid moment, he was scared enough to believe that she would call off their engagement.

"It will be all right, Sam." But he didn't believe that at all.

He finally touched her. Cautiously at first, his hand traced down her arm. And then more quickly he was against her, pulling her in tight. She relaxed enough to stiffly embrace him. "What if you were pregnant?" he surprised her by whispering at her ear. "That is what leapt into my head tonight. What if you are?"

"It changes how you think," she assessed. She had been strangely immune to the thought of pregnancy. It had stayed something not real. But she could see, hear in the tremor to his voice, that it was very real to him.

"We haven't done anything to prevent that. You falling pregnant."

"I do understand that," she said, a tad testily, as she pushed away from him.

"I wasn't accusing, Sam." He was surprised by the venom that had come from her.

"No, you're right about it. It's just the way you say it. The way you say lots of things. You've already picked the best course of action, and all is left is to inform your troops."

"I'm rather used to being the boss, I suppose."

"But you aren't the only adult in _this_, Christopher."

"I know that," he said, flatly. And she worried there was some hurt in the words, too. "But when you are dressed like that," he said with a flick of his hand toward her uniform. "It has to be the way it was."

"But it can't. Can it? It can _feel_ like it was. Until something big happens. Something frightening..."

"I can't talk about this here, Sam. Let's not try to fix this just now. Please," he beseeched her softly with a hand to his forehead.

/ / / /

He walked her to his house. She didn't say a word, and he began to think this was not just about the things they had discussed after the fire. About them. Their jobs. There was more. Something deep-seeded and basic that was bothering Sam. Something she didn't want to talk about was responsible for her distraction and her mood.

… … …

With very little said between them, he poured them both a whiskey from the bottle that lived in the small cabinet in the front room. "Stay here tonight, Sam?"

She only nodded and took the glass from him. She paced, unable to stand still, until he guided her into the kitchen without more than a few words between them.

Dinner was tense and quick. Just something from a tin and buttered bread.

As they finished up, he asked, "Do you want to be first to use the bath?" He did not want to mention the fire yet again, but the fact that they both smelled of smoke and needed to wash up was undeniable.

She stood as if in answer and placed her glass by the sink. He risked a hand to her shoulder as he placed his glass beside hers. He fetched the plates from the table, and she picked up his whiskey glass to drain the last swallow he had left. The sensation made her cringe. But she felt it all as if from a distance.

He was beside her now, a question hanging sadly in his eyes, it seemed. She took up his hand, determined to feel here and connected. "Bath?" she said at last. And instead of dropping his hand and moving off, she squeezed his fingers harder and drew him along with her into the hall.

They stood beside the tub now, and her hands were at his tie, loosening the knot. He was afraid to argue. Afraid to question. And so he merely whispered as he stroked her arms, asking her what she was doing.

"Faster. If we just take a bath together." But there was no seduction in her voice.

His eyebrows were gently raised now. And concern made him incapable of speech. Perhaps Sam was in shock over the events with the fire, although being undressed by a woman was a manifestation of shock he had never seen.

She had his shirt half undone, and then she began on her uniform blouse. There was nothing said, but she seemed to be watching him for progress, he felt. And once she was convinced he was continuing to undress, she turned and began to fill the tub.

He was naked to the waist, his trousers were unhooked, when she turned around again. He felt strangely out of place and time in his own bathroom as he watched her.

This woman, whom he suddenly didn't know, seemed vacant and far away as she stepped out of her skirt.

He was old enough, experienced enough, that there should be nothing that left him feeling at such a disadvantage. But tonight, he simply did not understand what was truly happening with Sam. Or what she was thinking. She was not treating this romantically or with any signs of desire. Her expression was muted. Vague.

She looked as lost as he felt, he thought. Perhaps this was just a reaction to the day. To the danger. To the admission that their relationship was on shifting sand at the moment.

He worried a little less when she gave him half a smile and let her fingertips work up his bare arm and down again.

He got into the tub with her at her insistence, easing himself in to sit behind her.

"Girls grow up being told to change nappies and such. Give the littler kids a bath," she said, as if she was finishing a conversation already begun.

"Mm hmm."

"And you think you know what everything looks like after that."

"Did you then? Know what everything looked like?"

"Well, then some drunk gives you a very _unwelcome_ look, in an alley."

"Here, Sam? In Hastings?" he asked with concern.

"Only once in Hastings. A time or two on my travels. I've learned to steer clear of alleys."

How many strange and frightening things had happened to Sam that she had never talked about?

He knew her. But he did not necessarily know the things that had shaped her. She was not one to share her hurt.

"That's a crime, you know. Exposing himself," he told her.

"And believe me, we explained that to him. I wrote him a ticket even. Stuck it..." she said in disconnected fashion.

"I think I gave you too much to drink, Sam."

"There you go, being paternal again. I _am_ the one who drank it. Do let me take responsibility? Please?"

"Duly noted. _You_ drank too much, my dear," he corrected, pedantically.

"I didn't. I'm fine. And you," she cooed, wiggling against his chest. "You are the best bath mate I've ever had."

"Have there been many?" he asked, feigning shock.

"Well, you know how it is in the summer."

"Um? No."

"We'd need baths every night, my cousins and me. We'd get horribly dirty. My cousin Charlie was a dickens." She paused a second, as if registering what she was saying from afar. "Gosh, no pun intended. You know how everyone always says 'off you go. And wash behind your ears?' Well. This one little boy, Harlow, was the reason."

"Are you all right, Sam?"

"I'm not drunk."

"No," he said with only the slightest trace of doubt. "I know. But are you all right?"

"It might be my nerves," she admitted.

"You can tell me if something's bothering you, dear," he murmured as gently as he knew how. He squeezed her a little tighter. "Even if it's me. Especially..."

"No. It's not you. It's fine."

Abruptly then, she stood. The water cascaded off of her and on to him, leaving him momentarily blinded and decidedly confused. She had grabbed a towel and walked for the bedroom by the time he had wiped the water from his eyes and stood.

When he caught up with her, she was hanging the towel on the back of the bedroom door. And wordlessly then, she was pulling down the bed cover in the darkened room.

He followed suit, hanging his towel and then sliding into bed with her.

"I thought you might want to talk about it, given the day we had," he whispered as he snugged in behind her. But his statement was pushing just a little too hard, and he likely should have known that.

"I _don't_ want to talk about it, precisely because of the day we've had."

She shook her head as if answering questions he could not hear. But then she turned in his arms and pressed needy kisses to his mouth.

"What happened, Sam?" he tried to ask as he eased away. "What's happening now?"

Her hand travelled across his skin. Her touch was cautious, but insistent. And her meaning clear. She wanted this as distraction or healing or avoidance. She needed him, his touch, his love.

But he slowed her. Shushed her. And she sensed the incongruence between them.

"I thought we could be what the other needs. Always. Easily."

"Always. Maybe not always _easily_, Sam. Tell me something," he tried again. "Anything. Just so I don't have to worry quite so much. Because I love you. But I'm scared. Please."

And as she began to relax against him, she whispered, "I love you, too. And I'm not angry with you. It's not that. Just, I don't like fires. It's the smoke. You could get lost, people get lost, just feet from the door and..."

She wasn't talking about tonight, he sensed.

She wasn't telling him, not quite, what had truly happened. But he had heard more than enough.

"You think it's wrong." she told him as he kissed her forehead, "to want you like this when I am scared... Or is it that we should be more careful about not getting me pregnant?"

"Shh," he said, hoping she would slow down. "No. And, no. I've got some..." She was getting him distracted, which was no surprise. They could discuss the Fourex he'd bought after he'd explained himself. "I just needed to know enough that _I_ could be a little less scared."

"It will be all right. I know it will." She was the one reassuring them both suddenly. "We are a good team. Aren't we?"

"None better. Absolutely. None better."

She smiled then, her real full smile.

It crept in after that – that sense they created for themselves. The sense that the world was only as large as this room. That there was nothing beyond the press of hips. The taste of skin. The sound of their shared breaths.

… … ...

She quickly fell asleep, and the evening's events still plagued him. He checked the bedside clock with a quiet groan, and then carefully climbed out of bed to dress.

He paced a bit in the hallway over the decision. Finally, he sat and placed the call to the vicarage, even though it was getting late.

… … …

"It's Christopher. Sam's fine," he hurried to assure her mother. "I don't want to alarm you. I just... had a question."

"Yes?" came the hesitant reply.

"Is there a problem..." Foyle began. "Did she have a bad experience with a fire?"

Emily sighed across the line. "There was a house fire when she was younger. In town. A family from church that she used to babysit for. Two people died. They were found right by the doors, but they somehow never made it out."

"She mentioned something like that tonight. There was a fire at a dance hall... No one was hurt, but..."

"For months after what happened, Samantha seemed to think about nothing else," her mother said, sadly. "It consumed her, really. The idea that there should be special lights or signals to help people find their way out or ropes to guide someone. That sort of thing. She drew it all up and mailed off her ideas to half a dozen fire brigades."

"She didn't want to talk about it, but I decided there must be something going on," he said.

"You are whispering, Christopher. Is she there?"

"She's asleep in the next room," he admitted. "I didn't want her alone tonight. I think we rather frightened each other today... over the fire."

"I understand. And well, thank you."

/ / / / / /

"Do you have things that bother you, scare you?" Sam whispered, after he'd eased himself back into bed. "Things that stay with you somewhere under the surface, just to come up and… derail you?" she wanted to know.

"I do. You must know I do," he said, thinking it had been perfectly clear that he was nearly immobilized with fear over Andrew deploying. That he had behaved almost irrationally over the idea that she was headed toward the fire tonight.

"So, we just are what we are, and we make the best of it?"

"Does it feel that dire? That we are just making the best of it?" he wanted to know.

"No! I didn't mean us, as a couple. I meant that, well, I'm just ever so slightly insane, and we have to cope with that."

"You aren't, Sam. You are a perfectly rational, beautiful, amazing woman who has held up so very well, no matter what has happened. A woman who helps me cope, keeps _me_ sane."

She hugged him and looked distinctly happier.

But he still had his confession to manage. He cleared his throat. "And I... Sam. I'm sorry. I only do what I think is right. What I think is best. And..."

"And you called my parents. I know. I heard you."

"Are you angry?" he asked, as he risked a tender hand to her arm.

"No."

"We are in this together," he told her gently. "The things that bother _you_. Those things that _I_ need help with. I can't manage without you. And I hope you won't resent it when I try to help you."

"I don't resent it. I truly, absolutely don't," she said. And the smile that followed was tired.

But finally, unworried.


	18. Chapter 18

_**A/N: This (sob!) is the last chapter. As such, it is my last chance to go over the top with these two. Forgive me. **_

_**Thanks so very much for reading. **__**I**__** have had a great time writing this and have loved hearing from you.**_

_**Many thanks to dancesabove. Blame me for the regrettable bits that were meant to be cute or funny.**_

* * *

><p>The morning after her stay at Steep Lane, they were both feeling warm, and good. And completely unrepentant. She refused to slink off. He would not suggest she sneak out before dawn.<p>

"Four days," she said at breakfast. She grinned and carefully clinked her teacup against his.

Four days until they were married, his mind supplied, as he surveyed her happy face. Only two until she would head to Lyminster to be fussed over by her mother and her old friends in preparation for the ceremony.

… … …

Neither knew if anyone had wondered why Sam would be walking out of his old place with him that morning – with the Wolesely nowhere in sight. Neither cared much at all, nor did they even discuss it that day.

They managed the remainder of the workweek surprisingly well. At the office there was a "borrowing forward" from that married, very settled sort of feeling. On the other hand, in the evenings, there was the expectation... that began with the _wanting_ of expectation.

It started when Sam explained that she wouldn't invite him in after their dinner out. Christopher understood immediately. They were back to their lingering goodnight kisses on the stoop, their teasing caresses, and their groans as they tugged lightly at each other's clothing.

When Foyle took Sam to the train station to send her off to her parents' house, the young woman dug her hands into his lapels and sighed magnificently. He had not whispered anything spectacular at her ear, but the effect he had on her seemed immediate. And he was glad of it.

"Tell me you have a room for us somewhere outside of Lyminster after the reception," she said with a touch of desperation in her voice.

"Yes."

"What sort of place?" she wondered.

He hoped she was thinking the way he was: that it was not luxury they needed. "Short distance away. A smallish place. Quiet, with a wonderfully anonymous and non-intrusive feel to it."

"Mmmm."

He gave her a happy, if crooked, smile.

This was a _much_ better way to send her off from the station than that hellish and complete disaster he had managed before Christmas.

… … …

The afternoon before the wedding, Foyle sat next to Hugh in the Reids' car. Emma Reid had insisted she be allowed to sit in the back, so the men could talk. And then she did what she knew neither of the men would have been willing to do – she leaned forward so that her elbows rested on the front seats and she kept the conversation going.

"Sam explained that you were the one in charge of the honeymoon plans," she said to Christopher.

"Yes. That's right."

"So, where are you going?" Hugh asked him.

"I can't tell you. Not even Sam knows."

"I don't believe you!" Reid fired back.

"It's true," Emma said. "Sam told me that herself."

Hugh Reid, always keen to learn more about how to possibly keep on a woman's good side, was intrigued by the quandary the detective had set for himself. "So, how on earth did you pick where to go?"

"I just threw a dart at a map," Foyle claimed, with a shrug.

Despite being responsible for driving, Hugh turned his head enough to blink hard at the man next to him. Finally, he looked at the road again and stammered, "You didn't!"

His wife took that chance to give him a tap on the arm that seemed loving, but well practiced. "Of course he didn't, Hugh! Dear God. He isn't insane."

And Foyle laughed in a rare way that made Hugh only too glad to have been taken in by the man's joke.

/ / / /

The wedding day was remarkable, everyone agreed, for the lack of nerves the couple displayed. Neither had seemed more than a tad anxious at the church. And at the reception, they danced together to a pleasingly slow song on the phonograph as if completely at ease.

At the edge of the floor, a gray-haired woman stood speaking to Uncle Aubrey. Nearly everything they said was within earshot of the newly married pair. And the groom over heard the older woman's remark that he and Sam _really_ were quite surprisingly calm.

"I don't suppose you could blush on cue?" Christopher jokingly suggested, at his wife's ear.

"You need me to go all red? On demand? Whatever for?" Sam replied with a shake of her head.

"Oh, your old neighbor, Mrs. Lloyd, is wondering why you aren't more of a blushing bride."

There was half a snigger then. "Because I'm an old married woman... and a veteran police driver, _that's _why."

With some relief, Sam then heard Uncle Aubrey explain to the old woman that it was just a case of the newlyweds being so decidedly compatible.

"I'm off the hook," Sam whispered as she pulled in a little closer. "I shan't have to explain or lie _or_ draw a picture. We are just '_decidedly compatible_.'" As she leaned back again, she gave him a grin that was blindingly happy.

But to Sam's left, Mrs. Lloyd persisted in giving the reverend a doubting look over his assertion.

With a quirked smile, the vicar then announced (most certainly with the intent that his niece would hear), "She's been driving him around for two years, Mrs. Lloyd! Can you imagine spending two years in a confined space with our Samantha? So, obviously they are just that compatible." With comedic timing that spoke to a bent for a different career, he then added, "I'm not sure what that says about Mr. Foyle, however."

The oversized imp shot Sam a wink, and the young woman suppressed her groan.

Worse, Mrs. Lloyd pronounced Christopher 'a _most_ patient man.'

Foyle wisely steered their dancing as far away from that conversation as he could. "I knew we should have just run off," Sam told him. "The problem with weddings is family. And well, neighbors. Anyone you know, really..."

"But this was nice. Being in the church. Having people here. Right?" her real and truly husband prompted.

"Instead of clay pots as witnesses," she supplied.

The look she got as a reply was one she had seen many times before. It translated vaguely as _'Behave.' _He did not trust the look he received in turn.

After their dance, the tenacious Mrs. Lloyd cornered them by the punch. And sternly asked if they had made honeymoon plans.

Christopher sweetly told her that it was a surprise – that even Sam didn't know.

"But, I hope there are boats," Sam cooed shamelessly.

And what the room got then was a blushing, pained-looking groom. One who was jokingly considering a little good-natured corporal punishment. Later.

/ / / /

Sam woke from the warm dreamy state she had drifted into. She was _home,_ in their bed in the new house, she thought with a smile. She shuddered lightly as something inside of her remembered the recent pleasure of him. Something echoed and stirred with a satisfaction that endured deep within. Her body seemed so light, so far gone, as the last tremor passed. A hum escaped her, but she didn't even try to open her eyes.

The bed dipped as Foyle returned. She felt his hand on her, tracing through the sheet and along her stomach in answer to this aftershock that he'd seen.

He leaned close to kiss her neck, and she breathed in the soap on him. Remembered that he had left the bed to quickly bathe.

"I'm all right," she told him.

"Oh, I _know_ you are." She was well acquainted with that tone. Heard the pleased, almost proud grin.

A lazy smile came to her lips.

"You told me not to try," she ventured shyly, after a pause.

"Hmm?"

_Is it at all acceptable to dissect these things quite so boldly__?_ Sam wondered. And she apologized.

"When we were making love?" he whispered, as he leaned in again to touch her neck with his lips. "Yes. I did tell you that."

"And when I stopped..." It made no sense to her. Passivity is not something she excelled at. But she had shut her eyes and fallen away under his touch, at his suggestion. Only her voice had continued. She remembered asking for more. Her vocabulary suddenly had become limited to 'please,' 'more,' 'yes'…

"You stopped trying to finish or to please me and then things got... _better_," Foyle said softly.

Sam laughed weakly at his understatement, and embarrassed, she threw an arm over her face to hide behind.

"Tell me..." she teased. "Tell me it will always be so good?"

He sat up then and pulled at her hand so he could see her again. "Married a week, and you want me to lie to you?"

She manufactured a pout.

"Now, get up," he tried to chide. "Our first day back to work… we can't be late. It is going to be all winks and nudges as it is without the two of us walking in past time."

"Right. Right," she told him as she worked to sit up. "But _you_ remember your promise."

"Yes, after lunch. I think we can manage an hour alone."

"We'll take the car out to the lanes by Dewey Farm. I think that would be good."

"Keeping the potential witness list down, are you?" he said with a lopsided, happy look.

"Yes. It will be just as much a reflection on me as on you," she said as she pushed a finger into his chest, "if it turns out you are actually hopeless at driving."

He grinned then. Slowly, wickedly. And he captured her hand to caressingly kiss the palm of it. "I _think_ you'll find I can be good at more than one thing on any given day, Sam."

She knew he was right. And she knew how lucky she was then that she would get to enjoy him and all the various things he would prove to be good at... on all the days they'd be given.

/ / / / /

_**A/N:** I have purposely neglected to describe the ceremony or the honeymoon for a few reasons. Other stories do a lovely job of both and I didn't know that I had anything unique to add. And also, most readers probably have a favorite view in their head of how those two events might go - and I am not fool enough to try to compete with that. In my mind (since dancesabove asked) I thought they might honeymoon in Wales. It could remind them of the case that led to her getting a chance to stay with him more permenantly. And if I let my mind wander, I can believe he allowed himself to enjoy their conversations on that early trip and that that was when he began to see her differently. _


End file.
